material. It is unclear how to code the referential forms in the clause, and they can involve a different mental space. If part of them do involve a different mental space and part of them do not, the decisions
on which to include and which to exclude could prove to be unmanageable. The reason for excluding coordinate noun phrases rests entirely on the coding issue. If one referent is encoded within a coordi-
nate noun phrase by a noun and another referent is encoded within the noun phrase by an affix the two forms are inherently different but could both be coded by calling the occurrence a coordinate noun
phrase. While the answer to the questions of proper coding are solvable, and the theoretical issues re- volving around quotations and subordinate clauses, need to be resolved, that resolution is not needed
to determine the best model among those under consideration. While quotations, subordinate clauses, and coordinate noun phrases are not examined in this study, they are included in counts for referential
distance and topic persistence.
Table 5.1. Initial introduction referential forms and the number of their occurrences
Form Occurrences Form
Occurrences zero
7 noun phrase and verb affix
54 verb affix
17 name
8 pronoun
12 name and verb affix
11 pronoun and verb affix
15 quote
25 noun
38 subordinate clause
24 noun and verb affix
12 coordinate NPs
26 noun phrase
46 Total
333 Table 5.2. Post introduction referential forms
and the number of their occurrences Form
Occurrences Form Occurrences
zero 152
noun phrase and verb affix 35
verb affix 648
name 13
pronoun 65
name and verb affix 23
pronoun and verb affix 123
quote 42
noun 36
subordinate clause 37
noun and verb affix 34
coordinate NPs 30
noun phrase 32
Total 1270
5.2.1 Participant introductions
Certain facts are readily discernible from table 5.1. There are 333 referents in the texts; the majority of them, 280, are introduced by some form that is specific, such as a name or a noun phrase. The re-
maining fifty-three are initially specified with either a pronominal form, verb affix or zero. Given that table 5.1 includes first-person referents, most of the models of reference management would predict
that all the minimal forms must be first-person referents. This would allow them to claim that since first-person referents are always available in the speech situation, then their model, be it recency, epi-
sodes or memorial activation does not have to account for them. However, thirty-five of the fifty-three are third-person referents, and all the models, to be adequate, have to account for them.
74 Results and Analysis
5.2.2 Post introduction references
The most common form of reference in Olo is by verbal affix. This behavior is not unexpected, and it is easily accounted for by the different models. They would all predict a preponderance of minimal
forms. Given that discourses are continuous streams of coherent speech, the different models predict that once a referent was referred to by a minimal form, that form would continue until some outside
force caused the use of a more fully specified form. For the recency model, this would be absence from the register. Episode models claim the episode boundary is the outside force. The memorial activation
model claims that it is the drop in activation, caused by episode boundaries as well as other possible phenomena. Goal Oriented Activation agrees that it is expected that minimal forms would be the most
common, since a referent is referred to by a minimal form only when the activation level of the refer- ent is what the speaker wants to meet his ongoing goals. Anything that changes the balance of activa-
tion levels among participants or lowers overall activation would cause the speaker to adjust the activation levels by using a more specific form.
There were 648 occurrences where verbal affixes were the only morphological form used to refer to the participant. This class makes up 51 percent of the referential forms cited in table 5.2. When com-
bined with zero forms, we find that minimal referential devices make up 63 percent of the referential forms after initial introduction. This proportion is close to that found by Payne 1993 where he re-
ports devices of this type make up roughly 67 percent of the referential forms in Yagua. When the ver- bal affixes and zero are combined with pronominal forms, the figure in Olo climbs to 77.8 percent.
Since the majority of the stories in the database in this study are first-person narratives, it is possible that these figures could be unduly biased by first-person referents. However, this is not the case. While
the numbers are lower, the combination of zero reference and verbal affixes still accounts for 61 per- cent of all referential forms. The figures for just third-person post introduction referential forms are
given in table 5.3.
Table 5.3. Third-person post introduction referential forms Form
Occurrences Form Occurrences
zero 107
noun phrase and verb affix 34
verb affix 414
name 13
pronoun 37
name and verb affix 23
pronoun and verb affix 53
quote 34
noun 36
subordinate clause 26
noun and verb affix 34
coordinate NPs 21
noun phrase 29
Total 861
The percentage of nonfully specified forms rises to 71 percent when the pronouns and pronoun plus verbal affix are added. These “pronominal forms” are much more frequent than the more fully speci-
fied “nominal” forms. This is expected, and all the different models easily account for this behavior.
5.3 Referential Distance