Anaphors and Text Structure in Romance and Germanic Languages: Typologies in Comparison

This paper investigates text level differences in exo- and endocentric languages. It takes its point of departure in Italian and Danish anaphoric relations, distinguishing between coreferential, associative and resumptive anaphors and their distribution. The text informational value of the anaphors shows parallel characteristics to the lexical distribution of informational “weight” in exo- and endocentric nouns and verbs, and the anaphor distribution also reveals important typological differences in exo- and endocentric text structure. I argue that several of these structural differences may be accounted for by differences in exo- and endocentric “cognitive schemas”, caused by differences in the lexical systems. Very likely, also socio-cultural differences between the speech communities play a role in the difference between a more complex and hierarchic exocentric and a simpler and more linear endocentric text structure.