The Distribution of Person Refering Terms in Natural Conversation

This article outlines a methodology that integrates past approaches

to the subject of address and reference, which will allow for the

systematic and quantitative analysis of which person-referring expres-

sions are preferred by whom, and when they are used. Our purpose is to

make a case for examining personal reference as it occurs in natural

conversation and to outline a way to make this possible. We present our

methodology and highlight certain practical problems that arise, along

with suggested responses. This includes a discussion of the coding

scheme that has been developed and applied to a corpus of natural

conversation. The desired result of this article is to give a clear account

of the aims and constraints of our project. We discuss the differences