What is "logophoricity"

Logophoricity is the binding relation that holds between a special class of pronouns and their antecedents. Logophoric elements, which occur in embedded clauses introduced by verbs of saying, thinking or feeling, must be bound by the antecedent whose speech, thoughts, or feelings are being reported . The phenomenon was first observed in African languages that have a distinct set of logophoric pronouns that are morphologically differentiated from regular pronouns. Logophoricity is also attested with logophoric reflexives, which are non- clause-bounded reflexive pronouns such as is found in Japanese and Icelandic .

The conditions under which logophoricity may occur vary across languages. Both syntactic and semantic approaches have been used to account for logophoricity.