scholarly journals EXPRESS: Representations underling pronoun choice in Italian and English

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumiko Fukumura ◽  
Coralie Herve ◽  
Sandra Villata ◽  
Shi Zhang ◽  
Francesca Foppolo
Keyword(s):  
Phonological Similarity ◽  
Gender Effect ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Pronoun Use ◽  
Linguistic Level

Research has shown that speakers use fewer pronouns when the referential candidates are more similar and hence compete more strongly. Here we examined the locus of such an effect, investigating whether pronoun use is affected by the referents’ competition at a non-linguistic level only (non-linguistic competition account) or whether it is also affected by competition arising from the antecedents’ similarities (linguistic competition account) and the extent to which this depends on the type of pronoun. Speakers used Italian null pronouns and English pronouns less often (relative to full nouns) when the referential candidates compete more strongly situationally, whilst the antecedents’ semantic, grammatical or phonological similarity did not affect the rates of either pronouns, providing support for the non-linguistic competition account. However, unlike English pronouns, Italian null pronouns were unaffected by gender congruence between human referents, running counter to the gender effect for the use of non-gendered overt pronouns reported earlier. Hence, whilst both null and overt pronouns are sensitive to non-linguistic competition, what similarity affects non-linguistic competition partly depends on the type of pronouns.

scholarly journals Repeated names, overt pronouns, and null pronouns in Spanish

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Gelormini-Lezama ◽  
Amit Almor
Keyword(s):  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns

On the use of uno in Colombian Spanish: the role of transitivity

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-64
Author(s):  
Luz Marcela Hurtado ◽  
Ivan Ortega-Santos
Keyword(s):  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Colombian Spanish ◽  
The One ◽  
First Time ◽  
Two Bodies ◽  
Impersonal Pronoun

Abstract Our goal is to explore the intersection of two bodies of literature, namely, the one on impersonal constructions with an emphasis on uno ‘one’, and the one on the effect of transitivity and the focus of attention on the distribution of overt vs. null pronouns, where it has been shown that overt pronominal subjects are disfavored in transitive contexts as opposed to intransitive contexts. Through a variationist analysis of the expression of uno in Barranquilla, Colombia, in the PRESSEA-BARRANQUILLA corpus, we extend this line of inquiry to this impersonal pronoun and study in detail for the first time the effect of the various components of transitivity on the distribution of overt pronouns. Specifically, various transitivity parameters put forward by Hopper and Thompson are shown to correctly predict the distribution of uno, namely, number of participants and kinesis whereas sentence polarity, aspect and individuation of the object yield mixed results meriting future research.

scholarly journals Turkish-Dutch bilinguals maintain language-specific reference tracking strategies in elicited narratives

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeynep Azar ◽  
Aslı Özyürek ◽  
Ad Backus
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Reference Tracking ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns

Aim: This paper examines whether second-generation Turkish heritage speakers in the Netherlands follow language-specific patterns of reference tracking in Turkish and Dutch, focusing on discourse status and pragmatic contexts as factors that may modulate the choice of referring expressions (REs), that is, the noun phrase (NP), overt pronoun and null pronoun. Methodology: Two short silent videos were used to elicit narratives from 20 heritage speakers of Turkish, both in Turkish and in Dutch. Monolingual baseline data were collected from 20 monolingually raised speakers of Turkish in Turkey and 20 monolingually raised speakers of Dutch in the Netherlands. We also collected language background data from bilinguals with an extensive survey. Data and analysis: Using generalised logistic mixed-effect regression, we analysed the influence of discourse status and pragmatic context on the choice of subject REs in Turkish and Dutch, comparing bilingual data to the monolingual baseline in each language. Findings: Heritage speakers used overt versus null pronouns in Turkish and stressed versus reduced pronouns in Dutch in pragmatically appropriate contexts. There was, however, a slight increase in the proportions of overt pronouns as opposed to NPs in Turkish and as opposed to null pronouns in Dutch. We suggest an explanation based on the degree of entrenchment of differential RE types in relation to discourse status as the possible source of the increase. Originality: This paper provides data from an understudied language pair in the domain of reference tracking in language contact situations. Unlike several studies of pronouns in language contact, we do not find differences across monolingual and bilingual speakers with regard to pragmatic constraints on overt pronouns in the minority pro-drop language. Significance: Our findings highlight the importance of taking language proficiency and use into account while studying bilingualism and combining formal approaches to language use with usage-based approaches for a more complete understanding of bilingual language production.

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.

On the impact of clause order on pronoun resolution: evidence from Spanish

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Núria de Rocafiguera ◽  
Aurora Bel
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Pronominal Anaphora ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In research on intra-sentential pronominal anaphora resolution in null subject languages, it has been argued that null pronouns tend to be biased towards subject antecedents, whereas overt pronouns tend to prefer object antecedents, as predicted by Carminati’s ‘Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis’. However, these studies have mainly focused on only one of the two possible clause orders (main-subordinate or subordinate-main), which have not been overtly contrasted. This paper investigates the effects of clause order on the interpretation of third-person subject pronouns in globally ambiguous intra-sentential contexts by 49 native speakers of Spanish. The results of an acceptability judgment task explicitly comparing both clause orders indicate that relative clause order is a key factor affecting the interpretation of pronouns: while a preference of overt pronouns for object antecedents holds across clause orders, null pronouns show a bias towards subject antecedents only in subordinate-main sequences. These findings refine the Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis predictions by restricting them to subordinate-main complex sentences.

Does Maliseet-Passamaquoddy Have VP-Ellipsis?

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-298
Author(s):  
Philip S. LeSourd
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Vp Ellipsis ◽  
Lexical Integrity ◽  
Lexical Items

Richards (2009) proposes that VP-Ellipsis relates pairs of sentences in the Eastern Algonquian language Maliseet-Passamaquoddy that contain morphologically related verbs, one of which lacks a stem component that appears in the other. Under his proposal, the polysynthetic verbs of the language are decomposed into abstract syntactic structures, and VP-Ellipsis is applicable within the word. I argue that his data are better explained without postulating VP-Ellipsis for Maliseet-Passamaquoddy. The verbs that he sees as derived via ellipsis are independently occurring lexical items. There are in fact no ellipsis gaps in the structures he considers, only null pronouns, and overt pronouns may always occur in the relevant positions. My conclusions are fully consistent with the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis of Bresnan and Mchombo (1995) .

What does and doesn’t affect L2 overt pronoun production

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa Nagano
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Total Rate ◽  
Argument Position ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
Pronoun Use ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract This study examined corpus data from learners of Japanese whose L1s are English, Korean, and Mandarin (as well as native-speaker Japanese controls), in order to investigate the effect of two separate (but sometimes conflated) potential influences on overt pronoun production in the L2: (i) whether or not the L1 is a topic-drop language (like Japanese), and (ii) the properties of overt pronouns in the L1 compared to those of Japanese. In order to investigate (i), the rate of overt pronoun use in topic/argument position for all three learner groups was tabulated and compared to that of native speakers. In order to investigate (ii), total rate of overt pronoun use in all positions was tabulated, as well as the type of case-/discourse-marking particles that accompanied overt pronouns in each learner group, compared to native speakers. Results show no influence of L1 topic-drop status, but some influence of L1 overt pronoun properties, in the form of (a) interactions between the morphosyntax of pronouns and broader DP/NP structure in the L1 and L2, and (b) shared discourse properties of the overt pronoun in the L1 and L2.

Agreement in Promissive, Imperative, and Exhortative Clauses

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 157-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miok D. Pak ◽  
Paul Portner ◽  
Raffaella Zanuttini
Keyword(s):  
Rare Type ◽  
Final Particle ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Person Features ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Final Particles

Abstract. One of the unique features of Korean is that it marks sentences used to promise with the same grammatical mechanism - a paradigm of sentence final particles - with which it marks other clause types, like declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. In this paper we investigate this cross-linguistically rare type of PROMISSIVES and argue that they are members of the broader clause type of JUSSIVES, along with imperatives and exhortatives. However, within the jussive clause type, promissives, imperatives, and exhortatives differ from each other in having not only different sen-tence final particles but also different subjects. We argue that these two differences are correlated in such a way as to distinguish the three distinct clause types, promissives, imperatives, and exhorta-tives. We specifically argue that the jussive particle (sentence final particle in jussive clauses) is the head of a Jussive Phrase which carries person features and that the jussive particle enters an agree-ment relation with the subject. In studying various types of subjects allowed in both root and embed-ded jussive clauses we further argue that the Jussive head, as well as null pronouns in Korean has a shiftable person features while overt pronouns have unshiftable person features.

Grammatical and pragmatic factors in the interpretation of Japanese null and overt pronouns

Linguistics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mieko Ueno ◽  
Andrew Kehler
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Marginal Effects ◽  
Coherence Relations ◽  
Implicit Causality ◽  
Previous Subject

AbstractPronoun interpretation in English has been demonstrated to be sensitive to an interaction between grammatical and pragmatically driven factors. This study investigated the interpretation of pronouns in Japanese, which has both null and overt forms. Thirty-two native speakers of Japanese per experiment participated in passage completion studies with transfer-of-possession contexts (Experiment 1) or implicit causality contexts (Experiment 2), varying prompt type, aspect, and topic/nominative-marking of the previous subject. Two judges annotated reference and coherence relations in the completed passages. Japanese overt pronouns were revealed to pattern closely with English overt pronouns in their sensitivity to pragmatic factors, whereas null pronouns showed a mixed resilience to pragmatic factors. Topic-marking only showed marginal effects on reference in limited contexts. Despite different degrees of sensitivity to pragmatic factors, Japanese null and overt pronouns were both mostly subject-biased, casting doubt on the existence of a division of labor between the two forms. There was also an intrinsic link between reference and coherence relations throughout the experiments. We discuss the overall results in terms of language specificity and universality, the latter of which includes interactions between grammatical and pragmatic factors and the importance of discourse coherence in the interpretation of various pronouns across languages.

scholarly journals Pronoun interpretation in Italian: assessing the effects of prosody

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Goad ◽  
Lydia White ◽  
Guilherme D. Garcia ◽  
Natália Brambatti Guzzo ◽  
Sepideh Mortazavinia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Discourse Interface ◽  
Discourse Topic

In this paper, we offer a prosodic account to supplement some well-known findings relating to choice of antecedents for pronouns in Italian. We argue that methodologies previously used to assess pronoun interpretation are flawed in that they rely only on written language to assess interpretation. In biclausal sentences like (1a), null pronouns are preferred when the antecedent is the discourse topic and subject of a higher clause; otherwise, overt pronouns are preferred. Sorace and Filiaci (2006) and Belletti et al. (2007) report that second language (L2) speakers of Italian overuse overt pronouns in contexts where null pronouns would be appropriate; they attribute this overuse to problems at the syntax-discourse interface (a failure to fully appreciate the discourse requirements on overt pronouns) and/or to processing problems relating to the Position of Antecedent Strategy (PAS) proposed by Carminati (2002). In addition to the behaviour of the L2ers with respect to overt pronouns, there are some puzzling results in this literature: both native speakers and L2ers fail to perform as expected with null pronouns, allowing them to take object antecedents about 50% of the time.

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