26. Anaphoric and Cataphoric Shell Nouns

The writers of academic texts require to compose their texts that are cohesive and characterized with information flow. They can do this by using resources like anaphoric and cataphoric shell nouns as these play a significant role in the construction of such texts. These shell nouns encapsulate the content of the propositions (i.e., clauses or textual stretches) that precede or follow these nouns. However, the use of these nouns is not something straightforward. For this, the writers require to understand the propositions that precede or follow the shell nouns. They also require to know in which constructions these nouns can be placed to realize their aimed at meanings.

1. Anaphoric Shell Nouns

The anaphoric shell nouns refer back to earlier propositions, facts, and events encoded in the antecedent sentences or stretches and encapsulate these complex abstract entities. For example:

1. Using petrol cars incur two times expenditure as compared to the expenditure incurred by electric cars. This fact may help to explain the recent high increase in the sale of electric cars.

The anaphor shell noun this fact, in the above example, refers to and is interpreted with the help of clausal antecedent marked in italics. This antecedent is complex as there are a number of entities and events (e.g., using petrol cars, electric cars) which are interrelated. Furthermore, this antecedent is abstract in itself as it is not a purely physical activity.

The anaphoric shell nouns, i.e., idea, point, fact and problem are semantically rich and their role is to characterize and label their corresponding antecedents. These nouns are termed as shell nouns because they serve as conceptual shells for complex chunks of information present in the foregoing clauses or sentences.

1.1 Properties of Anaphoric Shell Nouns

The anaphoric shell nouns have a number of properties.

1. They can have meta-discursive role, i.e., they can be used to mention discourse in progress.
2. They can serve as cohesive devices as they refer to the stretches of foregoing text and can also make up starting points for the new information.
3. They encapsulate the essence of the forgoing text stretches.

Summarily, anaphoric shell nouns label the information which is referred to by them in certain ways.

1.2 Classification of Anaphoric Shell Nouns

Anaphoric shell nouns can be placed into four classes:

1. Utterance Nouns: accusation, answer, correction, gossip, protest
2. Cognition Nouns: assumption, distortion, idea, recognition, view
3. Text Nouns: chapter, paragraph, segment, sentence, words
4. Owner-less Nouns: fact, issue, point or result

The nouns belonging to the first three classes are meta-discursive and the nouns placed in the last class are non-meta-discursive. 

1.3 Function of Anaphoric Shell Nouns

First, the antecedents of anaphoric shell nouns are not individuals. They are ‘second-order entities’ i.e., events, situations, processes, etc. or ‘third order entities’, i.e., ideas, utterances, facts, and propositions. Second, these nouns encapsulate information which is not clearly delimited. In other words, they bring about the hypostatization and reification of the information they encapsulate. Last, these nouns help speakers or writers characterize and evaluate the antecedents and do the function of organizing principles in texts. 

1.4 Anaphoric Shell Nouns and Discourse Organization

Anaphoric shell nouns play different roles in discourse organization. These roles are encapsulation of complex information, cohesion, and topic boundary marking. Therefore, correct selection of anaphoric shell nouns is an important step for correct interpretation of a discourse. It means picking of right antecedent present in the foregoing clause or text stretch which may encode a problem, issue, fact, etc. Further, the resolution process of abstract nouns used as anaphoric shell nouns is sometimes quite challenging as it requires the use of semantics and world knowledge both (See 25. Shell Nouns and their Role in Discourse).

2. Cataphoric Shell Nouns

Cataphoric shell nouns, contrary to anaphoric shell nouns, are forward-looking shell nouns. The interpretation (understanding of antecedent) of cataphoric shell nouns is easier as compared to that of anaphoric shell nouns. For example:

1. The traffic police need to focus on the fact that traffic rules are violated on the road – and that it causes the loss of life and property.

The cataphoric shell nouns are followed by complement constructions for the purpose to establish intra-clause cataphoric prediction. This cataphoric prediction is brought into effect through encapsulating succeeding discourse segments. For the expression of semantic content enclosed in the shell-content complex, certain constructions are generally acknowledged as structural patterns for identifying in-clause cataphoric shell nouns. These constructions are: noun + that -clause, noun + to -infinitive, noun + be + that-clause, noun +be + to -infinitive, and noun + of +-ing clause. Following examples illustrate cataphoric uses of shell noun like difference, objective, probability, constraint, effort.

1. The main difference is that it does not cover all the points.
2. The objective of the study was to fix the target of the learning material development policy of our institution.
3. Shaheen is an outstanding scholar and has high probability of being selected to participate in the conference as a keynote speaker.
4. The constraint that our laboratory is not equipped with the required technology.
5. They wasted a lot of energy in an effort to upgrade the quality of their system.  

Some constructions, i.e. dependent wh-interrogative clauses can also function as noun complement construction. These constructions are:  noun+wh-cl, noun+of+wh-cl, noun+asto+wh-cl (primarily with the wh-interrogative word whether). It is important to note that the use of the constructions given below is rare in academic prose.

1. The reason why he was silent was disappointment. (noun+wh-cl)
2. The place where they work is full of hardships. (noun+of+wh-cl)
3. The issue whether to allow foreigners to work in the country is being debated. 

2.1 Cataphoric Use of Shell Nouns

For the cataphoric use of shell nouns, different complement constructions are required. In such constructions, shell nouns are seen as meaning making devices which are selected keeping in view the patterns of construal specific to disciplinary knowledge. For example:

• The requirement to meet high cost of living in drought stricken area discourages people to move to Cholistan.

The noun requirement is a shell noun in its form as it is complemented by the infinitive clause. Further, it has been derived from the verb require on the basis of morphological relatedness.

Some special abstract nouns serve as shell noun. These shell nouns have the same word forms as the corresponding verbs, such as result, promise, etc. For example:

• The result is that the same machine can work economically using a larger wheel.

The noun result, in the example given above, is staying as a shell noun because it is preceded by the definite article and followed by the complement be + that clause. Further, it semantically encapsulates the proposition the same machine can work economically using a larger wheel.

Some abstract nouns are derived from adjectives and these nouns serve as shell nouns.

• The reliability of using this yardstick to measure the overall learning is clearly confirmed by some renowned researchers.

In the example given above, the noun reliability is formally a shell noun as it is ensued by of + -ing complement construction.

Table 1: The Use of Cataphoric Shell Nouns in Various Patterns

2.2 The Intra-clause Cataphoric Function of SNs

The intra-clause cataphoric function of shell nouns is demonstrated by the five complement constructions, namely, SN + that-cl, SN + to-inf, SN + be + that-cl, SN + be + to-inf, and SN + of + –ing-cl. These constructions are deployed in different categories of discourse to perform the function of knowledge construal. Thus, we need to identify the linguistic and conceptual processes conveyed through the use of shell-content complexes. We also need to substantiate existing knowledge about how shell nouns and their complement constructions act as a lexico-grammatical unity to construe disciplinary knowledge (See 27. Illocutionary Shell Nouns).

3. Shell Antecedent Properties

The antecedents of cataphoric shell nouns stay in the same sentence as shown above. On the other hand, the antecedents of anaphoric shell nouns can be present closely or remotely in the forgoing clauses or stretches.

3.1 Functions of Antecedents of Anaphoric Shell Nouns and Cataphoric Shell Nouns

Commonly, antecedents perform three functions. First, whether they are that of anaphoric shell nouns or cataphoric shell nouns, they represent the corresponding shell or extracted concept. Here extracted concept is the notion of a fact or an issue that resides in adjacent constructions. Second, the antecedents of both the shell nouns stay as complex abstract entities, i.e. they involve a number of entities and relationship among them. Lastly, antecedents of both sort of shell nouns have not one-to-one correspondence between the syntactic type of an antecedent and semantic type of its referent. For instance, fact (a semantic type) can be expressed with the help of various syntactic shapes such as a phrase, clause or complex sentence. Contrarily, a syntactic shape, e.g.  a clause can function as several semantic types which may include fact, proposition, and event.

In conclusion, the anaphoric and cataphoric shell nouns help structure information through showing various relationship of propositions. For example, the shell noun difference introduces a comparison or contrast that is clarified in the following text. Thus it becomes easier for the reader to understand the relationship between various parts of the text. Further, they help the writers to be more concise as they can introduce complex ideas with a single understandable noun. These shell nouns help the writers particularly in establishing cohesion, clarity and clear information flow in texts by introducing topics before they are fully explained. This support enables the writer to build a narrative arc by hinting a future content and thus generating the readers’ expectations.

Sources Consulted

1. Dong, Chengyu, Qiu (2020).
2. Francis (1986)
3. Kolhatkar, Zinsmeister, and Hirst (2013)
4. Webber (1991)