Abstract

This paper, in light of the notion of ‘minimal discourse-internal protagonist’, sets out to formulate as its analytic framework a pragmatic principle governing anaphora patterns and then explores the functions of third-person reflexives in Chinese discourse. The findings are in order. First, in Chinese, simplex reflexives are basically logophoric, whereas complex reflexives serve primarily to highlight and contrast discourse entities. Secondly, there are two types of constructions in Chinese in terms of anaphoric production: one is known as single-fold anaphora and the other as dual or multifold anaphora. And thirdly, our proposed pragmatic principle can very well capture the uses of reflexives in Chinese discourse.

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