scholarly journals Pronoun preferences of children in a language without typical third-person pronouns

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-185
Author(s):  
Maialen Iraola Azpiroz ◽  
Mikel Santesteban ◽  
Antonella Sorace ◽  
Maria-José Ezeizabarrena
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Change ◽  
Developmental Pattern ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Developmental Shift ◽  
Tolerance For Ambiguity ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Third Person ◽  
General Preference ◽  
Null Pronoun

This study presents comprehension data from 6–7-and 8–10-year-old children as well as adults on the acceptability of null vs overt anaphoric forms (the demonstrative hura ‘that’ and the quasipronoun bera ‘(s)he, him-/herself’) in Basque, a language without true third-person pronouns. In an acceptability judgement task, a developmental change occurred in the preference for hura (Experiment 1): 6–7-year-olds showed a preference for the null pronoun in both topic-shift and topic-continuity contexts, while 8–10-year-olds, like adults, preferred hura in topic-shift contexts and null pronouns in topic-continuity contexts. However, no developmental shift was observed in the preference for bera (Experiment 2): unlike adults, neither 6–7 nor 8–10-year-old children selected bera over null pronouns in topic-shift contexts. They instead showed a general preference for null pronouns, an indication of tolerance for ambiguity – a pattern which differs from prior studies in other null-subject languages, where ambiguous pronouns declined with age. The results reveal a different developmental pattern for hura and bera, which may be explained by the more rigid (syntactic) constraints operating on hura in comparison to bera in antecedent choice.

Does empirical data from bilingual and native Spanish corpora meet linguistic theory? The role of discourse context in variation of subject expression

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-515
Author(s):  
Estela García-Alcaraz ◽  
Aurora Bel
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Null Pronoun

AbstractThe goal of this study is to shed light on how empirical data on the discourse constraints of null and overt third person subject pronouns in L1 and bilingual Spanish meet linguistic theory. A (semi)spontaneous production task was administered to 34 Moroccan Arabic (MA)/Spanish early sequential bilinguals and 30 L1 Spanish controls. All 3rd person subject positions were coded: (1) morphosyntactic form (null pronoun vs. overt pronoun); (2) discourse function ([-Topic Shift] vs. [+Topic Shift]); (3) sentence relation (intrasentential vs. intersentential); (4) clause order within intrasentential contexts (main-subordinate vs. subordinate-main); and (5) access to the antecedent (clear vs. ambiguous antecedent). The results reveal general patterns of use in both L1 and bilingual Spanish: null pronouns express topic maintenance both in inter- and intrasentential contexts (both clause orders) and overt pronouns, especially in intersentential contexts, are generally used for topic change. However, additional analyses provide evidence that null pronouns in L1, but not in bilingual Spanish, are often used in change of reference contexts where the antecedent is not ambiguous. This reveals patterns that have gone unreported by most previous descriptive and theoretical studies. Finally, a higher use of ambiguous null pronouns is attested among bilingual speakers, which suggests a lower control of the mechanisms by which reference is established in discourse and supports, to some extent, the predictions derived from the Interface Hypothesis.

scholarly journals Prosodic effects on pronoun interpretation in Italian

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia White ◽  
Heather Goad ◽  
Jiajia Su ◽  
Liz Smeets ◽  
Marzieh Mortazavinia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Null Subjects ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
The Subject

In this paper we offer a prosodic account of some well-known L2 findings relating to discourse requirements on pronouns in null subject languages like Italian. Discourse plays a role in determining when a null or overt pronoun in acceptable: in biclausal sentences, null subjects are strongly preferred when the antecedent is the subject in another clause (-topic shift). Overt subjects, in contrast, imply a change of topic and a preference for non-subject antecedents. Carminati (2002) expresses this as the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis (PAH), a processing constraint whereby null pronouns prefer antecedents in Spec IP whereas overt pronouns prefer their antecedents to be elsewhere. Previous methodology used tasks where participants made judgments based on sentences they read to themselves, making it impossible to determine what prosody had been adopted. Our results suggest that there are prosodic effects on pronoun interpretation; hence, prosodic factors should be taken into consideration in future experiments.

scholarly journals Testing children’s knowledge of generic null pronouns

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-167
Author(s):  
Karina Bertolino
Keyword(s):  
Native Language ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Null Pronoun ◽  
Value Judgement ◽  
Brazilian Children

In this paper, I discuss an experiment conducted with children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese (BP) as their native language. The experiment was designed to test if Brazilian children understand that the null subject in impersonal structures has the generic reading in BP instead of the referential one. The experiment consisted of a Truth-Value Judgement Task (TVJT). The results show that children as young as 4 years of age understand the null subject in impersonals as generic. Based on a study showing that a 2-year-old child acquiring Estonian already produces null impersonals (TORN-LEESIK; VIJA, 2012), it is possible that children acquiring BP correctly assign the generic reading to a null pronoun in impersonal constructions before the age of 4. I propose that this knowledge could be tested in children younger than 4 using the Intermodal Preferential-Looking (IPL) paradigm (GOLINKOFF et al.,1987; NAIGLES; TOVAR, 2012), a method more suitable than the TVJT to test children that are very young.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------TESTANDO O CONHECIMENTO DE CRIANÇAS SOBRE PRONOMES GENÉRICOS NULONeste artigo, discuto um experimento conduzido com crianças adquirindo o português brasileiro (PB) como língua materna. O objetivo do experimento era testar se crianças brasileiras entendem que o sujeito nulo em estruturas impessoais tem uma leitura genérica no PB, em vez de referencial. O experimento consistiu em uma Tarefa de Julgamento de Valor de Verdade (TJVV). Os resultados mostram que crianças com 4 anos de idade já interpretam o pronome nulo em impessoais como genérico. Baseado em um estudo que mostra que uma criança de dois anos adquirindo o estoniano já produz sujeitos nulos impessoais, é possível supor que crianças adquirindo o PB atribuam corretamente a leitura genérica ao pronome nulo de impessoais antes dos 4 anos. Proponho que esse conhecimento possa ser testado em crianças antes dessa idade usando o Paradigma do Olhar Preferencial, um método mais adequado do que a TJVV para testar crianças muito novas---Original em inglês.   TESTANDO O CONHECIMENTO DE CRIANÇAS SOBRE PRONOMES GENÉRICOS NULO

Null subjects

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-300
Author(s):  
Ian Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Null Subjects ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
General Account ◽  
Article System ◽  
Historical Sketch

After a brief historical sketch of work on null subjects, and a summary of Barbosa’s proposals concerning the relation between partial and radical null subjects, the chapter presents a typology of null arguments which links their properties directly to the D-system, suggesting a cross-linguistic link between the nature of the null-subject system and the nature of the ‘article system’ in a given language. After a brief consideration of the semantics of null pronouns and the role of the Person feature in licensing null arguments, a general account of ‘licensing pro’ is put forward, which relies on the twin ideas that pro contains a variable and that all variables must be bound at the C–I interface. Finally, there is an updated and refined parameter hierarchy for φ‎-parameters. The question of the relation of variation in these features to the C–I interface and the morphophonological interface is also taken up.

Le rôle de certains facteurs (morpho-)syntaxiques et informationnels dans le choix de il ou de celui-ci

Revue Romane ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annemie Demol
Keyword(s):  
The Third ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
The Third Person

This contribution1 provides a corpus-based analysis of some (morpho-) syntactic factors that influence the choice between the third person clitic pronoun il and the demonstrative pronoun celui-ci : the syntactic function of the antecedent, as well as its form, and the syntactic function of the pronoun itself. Special attention is paid to a series of counterexamples to Zribi-Hertz’s (1992) constraint on discursive promotion. The different tendencies observed for il and celui-ci with respect to the syntactic criteria examined, provide evidence for the hypothesis that il marks topic continuity and celui-ci a topic shift and ultimately lead to a reformulation of the constraint on discursive promotion in terms of topic promotion.

How we know our minds: The illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality

1993 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Gopnik
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
First Person ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Developmental Shift ◽  
Representational Model ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Mind

AbstractAs adults we believe that our knowledge of our own psychological states is substantially different from our knowledge of the psychological states of others: First-person knowledge comes directly from experience, but third-person knowledge involves inference. Developmental evidence suggests otherwise. Many 3-year-old children are consistently wrong in reporting some of their own immediately past psychological states and show similar difficulties reporting the psychological states of others. At about age 4 there is an important developmental shift to a representational model of the mind. This affects children's understanding of their own minds as well as the minds of others. Our sense that our perception of our own minds is direct may be analogous to many cases where expertise provides an illusion of direct perception. These empirical findings have important implications for debates about the foundations of cognitive science.

The time course of long-distance anaphor processing in Korean

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chung-hye Han ◽  
Dennis Ryan Storoshenko ◽  
Betty Hei Man Leung ◽  
Kyeong-min Kim
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Anaphor Resolution ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Null Pronoun ◽  
Matrix Verb ◽  
Matrix Subject

While early studies on the Korean long distance anaphor caki describe it to be subject-oriented in that it can only take subject antecedents, similarly to long distance anaphors in many other languages, more recent studies observe that it can take non-subject antecedents as well, especially in the context of certain verbs. This paper presents a visual-world eye-tracking study that tested whether the antecedent potential of caki in an embedded subject position is a function of the matrix subject, the matrix verb, or both, and whether the subject and the verb effects constrain the interpretation of caki in the same way as null pronouns, a commonly used pronominal form in Korean. These questions were addressed through an investigation of how the subject effect and the verb effect were manifested in processing these pronouns. We found that when caki, but not null pronouns, was first processed, there were more fixations to the images representing the matrix subject than the images representing the matrix object regardless of the matrix verb. We further found that the proportions of fixations to the images in both caki and null trials changed after the processing of some sentential verbs. These findings demonstrate that while null pronoun interpretation is a function of the verb effect only, caki-interpretation is a function of both the subject and the verb effect, supporting a multiple-constraints approach to anaphor resolution.

Is There a Little Pro? Evidence from Finnish

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Holmberg
Keyword(s):  
Traditional View ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Extended Projection ◽  
Generic Pronouns ◽  
Null Noun

The traditional view of the null subject as pro identified by Agr (the φ-features of I) cannot be maintained in a theory where Agr is uninterpretable. Two hypotheses are compared with regard to the predictions they make for Finnish null subject constructions: (A) Agr is interpretable in null subject languages, and pro is therefore redundant; (B) null subjects are specified but unpronounced pronouns that assign values to the uninterpretable features of Agr. Since Finnish observes the Extended Projection Principle and has an expletive pronoun, Hypothesis A predicts that null subjects should cooccur with expletives. The prediction is false, favoring B over A. A typology of null subjects is proposed: Null bound pronouns and null generic pronouns in partial null subject languages, including Finnish, are D-less φ, and so are null subjects in consistent null subject languages with Agr, such as Spanish and Greek. Null 1st and 2nd person subjects in Finnish are DPs that are deleted. Null pronouns in languages without Agr, such as Chinese and Japanese, are the only true instances of pro, a minimally specified null noun.

Multiple constraints and the resolution of Korean null subject anaphor

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sook Whan Cho ◽  
Hyun Jin Hwangbo
Keyword(s):  
First Person ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Processing Load ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Person Features ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Syntactic Cues ◽  
Discourse Topic ◽  
Better Than

This study investigates how Korean adults interpret and identify the referent of a null subject in a narrative text, given different types of topic continuity and person features. We have found that the first-person feature was most accessible in the weak topicality condition in resolving the null subjects, and that the target sentences ending with the first-person modal suffix ‘-lay’ were read and responded to faster, and interpreted more correctly than other types of stimuli involving a third-person modal (‘-tay’) and a person-neutral modal (‘-e’). Furthermore, of the two first-person-specific featured types, the null subjects in the topically weak contexts were processed significantly better than those in the topically strong conditions. It was argued that anaphoric dependency would be formed more discursively than morpho-syntactically in the strong discourse continuity contexts involving no extra processing load due to the shift among multiple eligible candidates. It was also argued that, in the absence of discourse topic assigned strongly to more than one eligible referent in advance, morpho-syntactic cues involved in verb modality are likely to become prominent in the mind of the processor. It is concluded that these main findings support a constraint-based approach, but not the Centering-inspired work.

scholarly journals Asymmetries between interpretation and production in Catalan pronouns

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Laia Mayol
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Interpretation Bias ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Syntactic Position

The literature on Romance null-subject languages has often postulated a division of labor between Null and Overt pronouns: Nulls prefer to retrieve an antecedent in subject position, whereas Overts prefer an antecedent in a lower syntactic position (Carminati, 2002). However, recent research on English pronouns (Rohde and Kehler, 2014) has shown grammatical function alone cannot explain pronoun interpretation. According to these models, pronoun interpretation and production are sensitive to different sets of factors and, instead of being mirror images of each other, are related probabilistically in a Bayesian fashion. This paper tests this model with Catalan data from two discourse-completion experiments to study the grammatical and pragmatic factors that affect the interpretation and production of Null and Overt pronouns. Our main result is that both Null and Overt pronouns present asymmetries regarding their interpretation and production: (1) the production of Null pronouns is affected mainly by grammatical factors (they are subject-biased), but their interpretation is also influenced by pragmatic factors (in particular, rhetorical relations), and (2) while Overt pronouns have a strong interpretation bias towards the object, the data indicates that they are not the preferred form to refer to the object.

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