The overlap between the categories of reference and lexical cohesion has been pointed out already. In Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) definition the difference between reiteration (a form of lexical cohesion) and reference as a type of grammatical cohesion is not at all straightforward. Reiteration in their definition is

This issue is discussed from the perspective of lexical cohesion, only mentioning the reference item as if it could establish a cohesive reference tie on its own. Looking at it from the perspective of analyzing reference, it cannot be assumed that the definite article in itself (having the property of definiteness, but no meaning on its own) could point to another noun. Obviously, the reference item (for pointing elsewhere in the text), whether it is a determiner or a comparative and the lexical item (for specifying the item pointed to) are both necessary for us to be able to identify a cohesive tie. Hasan (1984) later also concedes that “the separation of lexical and grammatical cohesive chains quite clearly did violence to certain aspects of the text’s semantic organization” (ibid., 200). For example, “pronouns continue as subsequent mentions of an introducing noun phrase until there is a shift to a new discourse segment, when the full noun phrase surfaces again” (McCarthy, 1994, 270) in other words, that is when the full noun phrase re-enters the discourse. As reference to the same entity is maintained with this noun phrase, an analysis of reference will also have to take them into consideration.

 

 

The identification and application of the lexical relations listed in Table 16 are necessary for the systematic analysis of reference. Analytical problems related to lexical relationships between referring and presupposed items can be resolved in most cases by identifying whether they can be categorized as a form repetition or text-bound relation as well. If so, a referential tie is also established.