The Repeated Name Penalty, the Overt Pronoun Penalty, and Topic in Japanese

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinichi Shoji ◽  
Stanley Dubinsky ◽  
Amit Almor
Keyword(s):  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Repeated Name Penalty

Age of Arrival (AOA) effects on anaphor processing by Japanese bilinguals

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinichi Shoji ◽  
Stanley Dubinsky ◽  
Amit Almor
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Unpublished Manuscript ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Repeated Name Penalty ◽  
Reference Processing ◽  
Japanese English

AbstractThis study investigates the role of exposure to English on discourse-reference processing by native Japanese speakers. Shoji et al. (2016a, The repeated name penalty, the overt pronoun penalty, and topic in Japanese. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007 %2Fs10936-016-9424-4) found that Japanese-English bilinguals residing in the United States show a Repeated Name Penalty (RNP; Gordon et al. 1993. Pronouns, names, and the centering of attention in discourse. Cognitive Science 17. 311–347) and an Overt Pronoun Penalty (OPP; Gelormini-Lezama and Almor 2011, Repeated names, overt pronouns, and null pronouns in Spanish. Language Cognitive Processes 26. 437–454) in Japanese with both topic (wa-marked) subject anaphors and non-topic (ga-marked) subject anaphors, indicating that the different morphological markings on anaphors do not alter these effects. In contrast, more recent data collected from L1-immersed Japanese speakers residing in Japan (Shoji et al. 2016b, The repeated name penalty and the overt pronoun penalty in Japanese. Unpublished manuscript) show that these speakers do not show a RNP or an OPP for topic-marked anaphors. Here we report a reanalysis of Shoji et al.’s (2016a) results showing that these effects are moderated by participants’ Age of Arrival (AOA; i. e. the age at which participants first arrived to the place where their second language is regularly spoken). Participants with an early AOA showed differential processing patterns for topic-marked anaphors and non-topic anaphors, while participants with late AOA did not. We propose as an explanation that early AOA bilinguals represent different languages separately, while late AOA bilinguals tend to rely on a single unified language system.

scholarly journals Efeitos de animacidade do antecedente na resolução de pronomes sujeito

2018 ◽  
pp. 190-205
Author(s):  
Sara Morgado ◽  
Paula Luegi ◽  
Maria Lobo
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Information ◽  
Pronoun Resolution ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
Object Position ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
Multifactorial Approach

We report two experiments, a self-paced reading task and an off-line questionnaire, that tested if the overt subject pronoun in European Portuguese was sensitive to the animacy (animate vs. inanimate) of the antecedent in object position. We found higher reading times when the overt pronoun was forced to retrieve an inanimate antecedent compared to retrieving an animate one (Experiment 1) and less object choices with inanimate antecedents (compared to animate ones). Our findings show that several factors are taken into account during the resolution of pronominal forms, including animacy features, favouring thus a multifactorial approach to pronoun retrieval (Kaiser & Trueswell, 2008). We propose that there is a hierarchy that considers both syntactic and semantic information in pronoun resolution and that within the syntactic information the prominence of entities varies according to their animacy features. Our results are neither explained by processing theories that only consider syntactic factors (Carminati, 2005), nor by theoretical accounts that associate strong pronouns with animacy features (Cardinaletti & Starke, 1999).

The discursive distribution of subject pronouns in Spanish spoken in Georgia: A weakening of pragmatic constraints?

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-126
Author(s):  
Philip P. Limerick
Keyword(s):  
Contact Hypothesis ◽  
First Person ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
Subject Expression

AbstractThis study examines subject expression from a pragmatic perspective in an emerging bilingual community of Roswell, Georgia, an exurb of Atlanta. Using sociolinguistic interviews conducted in Roswell, first-person singular subject pronoun (SP) usage is analyzed among 10 Mexican speakers within five distinct pragmatic contexts: salient referent, switch focus, contrastive focus, pragmatic weight, and epistemic parentheticals. A comparison is made between Georgia speakers and monolingual Mexican speakers in Querétaro in order to explore the possible weakening of pragmatic constraints due to English contact. Results indicate that a contact hypothesis is not supported in terms of overall overt pronoun usage as evidenced by similar frequencies when compared to monolingual Mexican varieties. However, an increased use of overt SPs in the context of salient referent as well as a diminished use of overt SPs in switch focus contexts is found, suggesting a potential weakened sensitivity to such pragmatic constraints.

scholarly journals Resolução de pronomes em posição de sujeito em orações completivas na retoma de antecedentes em SNs complexos: estudo comparativo entre Português Brasileiro e Português Europeu

2019 ◽  
pp. 207-224
Author(s):  
Katharine Da Hora ◽  
Paula Luegi ◽  
Marcus Maia ◽  
Armanda Costa
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Pronoun Resolution ◽  
Structural Position ◽  
Number Agreement ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Structural Entity

In this study we tested, in EP and in BP, complement clauses with a null or an overt pronoun in subject position that is forced by number agreement to retrieve an antecedent within a complex subject NP in the main clause. With an eye-tracking while reading paradigm, we analysed the impact of structural position on pronoun resolution, investigating if the bias described for null-subject and overt-object pronoun resolution for null subject languages replicates for antecedents with different structural positions: null-NP1, the highest structural entity, and overt-NP2, the lowest structural entity. Moreover, we especially investigate the impact of structural position in BP, where c-command relations are considered to be of great relevance for null subject resolution. Results indicate that structural position impacts on pronoun resolution in the predicted way: null-highest NP, overt-lowest NP. Also, BP results reveal that, not only is the null form more constrained by c-command relations, preferentially referring to the c-commanding antecedent (NP1), but also that the overt pronoun does not show a clear bias also when considering structural position (as does not for syntactic function, as shown in previous studies).

The Overt Pronoun Constraint through the Spanish (Heritage) Lens

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Ewelina Barski
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Selection Task ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Heritage Speaker ◽  
Second Language Learner ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Overt Pronoun Constraint

The Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) has been studied on numerous occasions, addressing, in particular, the capabilities and limitations of the second language learner (Gürel, 2003; Kanno, 1997; Pérez-Leroux & Glass, 1997; Rothman & Iverson, 2007). However, studies are increasingly showing that the OPC may not be an unyielding restriction on grammar, as previously proposed by Montalbetti (1984) (Alonso-Ovalle, Fernández Solera, Frazier & Clifton, 2002; Gelormini Lezama, Huepe, Herrera, Melloni, Manes, García & Ibáñez, 2016; Keating, Jegerski, & VanPatten, 2016; Lipski, 1996). This study looks at the interpretation restrictions of the OPC by 20 Spanish heritage and 20 monolingual speakers in two experimental tasks: a sentence selection task and a picture-matching task. Results reveal that while participants show a preference towards the interpretation restrictions of the OPC, they do not respond at ceiling, which allows for variability. Additionally, the heritage speaker group varies from the monolinguals, indicating further divergence. This work provides a descriptive analysis of the findings and contributes to the dialogue on the flexibility of the OPC on language.

scholarly journals Erratum to: The Overt Pronoun Constraint Across Three Dialects of Spanish

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 1001-1001
Author(s):  
Carlos Gelormini-Lezama ◽  
David Huepe ◽  
Eduar Herrera ◽  
Margherita Melloni ◽  
Facundo Manes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Overt Pronoun Constraint
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