What is coreference?

What Does coreference Mean

Coreference is a concept that is used in the field of linguistics . This is the name of the link that is established in different linguistic elements that share the same referent .

It can be said that a coreference is a specific type of reference . Reference is called, in this framework, the relationship between a certain expression and what it refers to.
In the coreference, two or more linguistic elements refer to the same thing . Sometimes one of the elements is unspoken .
Let's look at an example: "He is a good player, although his athletic ability is poor . " In this case, there is a co-reference between "player" and "his" . The expression "his athletic ability" , as can be seen, refers to the "(good) player" . In other words, we are talking about the "athletic ability" of the "player" mentioned in the first section of the sentence .

Coreference is often used to avoid repetitions. A text may indicate: “Lionel Messi was born in Rosario. The FC Barcelona player was always attracted to football and showed an innate talent, although no one expected that Jorge and Celia's son would become a world star ” . In this case, "Lionel Messi" , "the FC Barcelona player" and "Jorge and Celia's son" maintain a co-reference relationship, since they point to the same person. For the writing, it is preferable to resort to co-reference instead of repeating “Lionel Messi” three times ( “Lionel Messi was born in Rosario. Lionel Messi was always attracted to football…”).

Go up