scholarly journals Differences between grammatical gender and semantic gender in pronominal antecedent retrieval in Brazilian Portuguese

Diacrítica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-115
Author(s):  
Michele Calil dos Santos Alves
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Interference Effects ◽  
Morphological Cues ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Syntactic Dependency

Coreference is a syntactic dependency in which pronouns are bound to previous referents in discourse. Granted that antecedents of anaphors must be retrieved from memory in coreference, the aim of this research is to provide more information on how pronominal antecedents are retrieved, and more precisely to clarify the role of gender cues in pronominal antecedent retrieval when gender morphology is overt. Since Portuguese is a language with visible morphology, speakers of this language are used to rely on agreement cues to process language. The results of two eye-tracking experiments conducted with native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese demonstrated that both binding structural constraints and gender morphological cues are equally important in antecedent retrieval in memory throughout processing. In addition, the results indicated that semantic gender seemed to weigh more in memory than grammatical gender since structurally unacceptable candidates carrying semantic gender caused more interference effects than grammatical gender.

scholarly journals Gender features in pronoun resolution processing in Brazilian Portuguese

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Michele Alves
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
On Line ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Grammatical Judgment ◽  
Gender Features

Given the fact that the parser has a very restrictive focus of attention, it is memory retrieval that helps us to bind antecedents and pronouns in coreference, which is considered a long distance dependency. Our memory seems to work in a content-addressable way (McElree, 2000; McElree et al, 2003; van Dyke and McElree, 2006), that is, all the antecedent candidates that match the pronoun cues are simultaneously accessed and the correct antecedent is retrieved. However, memory can suffer interference from distractors (Lewis & Vasishth, 2005; Lewis, Vasishth & van Dyke, 2006), items that are similar to the antecedent. Consequently the strength of association between the pronoun’s cues and the antecedent’s features reduces, and distractors can be retrieved instead of the antecedent. According to some psycholinguistic studies, at least two kinds of cues might play a role in this process: the structural constraints related to Principle B and agreement between antecedents and pronouns. This research aims to investigate how nominal antecedents are retrieved in Brazilian Portuguese, which is a language with morphology richness. The question is whether the structural constraints cues and the agreement cues would have the same influence in coreference processing. Moreover, a comparison between different types of agreement features will also be examined in order to find out whether memory retrieves feminine features differently from masculine; and whether grammatical gender, which is an invariable and arbitrary gender, is retrieved differently from semantic gender, which is related to the biological gender of the referent. The results of an eye-tracking study conducted with 24 native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese indicate that at the beginning of coreference processing, the only cues that are taken into account are the gender features. Interestingly, feminine and grammatical gender features were responsible for greater influences in both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. On the other hand, the structural constraints seem to play a major role at later processing phases. Additionally, an off-line grammatical judgment experiment with the same materials used in the previous experiment was conducted with forty native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. The results confirmed the eye-tracking findings as it seems that the presence of attractors influenced on-line and off-line processing as well as the comprehension of the sentences. Therefore, ungrammatical sentences with attractors were treated as grammatical and grammatical sentences with attractors were treated as ungrammatical. Besides that, ungrammatical sentences were also vulnerable to semantic illusions in the presence of attractors, that is, distractors were retrieved as semantic referents.                                                                                                                                    

Transitions to adulthood and psychological distress in young adults born 12 years apart: constraints on and resources for development

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Sacker ◽  
N. Cable
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Adult Roles

BackgroundLater transitions to adult roles and responsibilities have been linked with better psychological well-being yet psychological distress has risen despite young people making the transition to adulthood at older ages over recent years.MethodWe examine the role of structural constraints and adolescent resources in the relationship between the timing of transitions and psychological distress in early adult life in the 1958 National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study. Graphical chain models were used to examine the influences on timing of four key transitions and their relationship with psychological distress (Malaise Inventory). The role of structural factors at birth (gender, social class) and adolescent resources (psychosocial problems, exam grades) were modelled.ResultsAn earlier transition to adult roles was associated with an increased risk for psychological distress but so was failing to make some key transitions. Structural constraints had negative effects on successful development. Persistent social class and gender inequalities in psychological distress were evident in both cohorts. Social class constraints were mediated by educational resources whereas gender constraints were mediated by psychosocial resources. The influence of structural constraints on the timing of transitions to adult roles was more complex with evidence of positive and negative mediation and moderation effects.ConclusionsDelaying transition to adulthood promotes psychological health but failure of transition to independent living is associated with psychological distress. Life-course transitions are constrained by social origin and gender and possibly economic environment. Adolescent resources help young adults to make timely transitions to adult roles.

scholarly journals Early and late bilingual processing of Spanish gender, morphology and gender congruency

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-208
Author(s):  
Irma Alarcón
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Distinct Advantage ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Real Time Processing ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Late Bilinguals

The present study investigates whether advanced proficiency-matched early and late bilinguals display gender agreement processing quantitatively and qualitatively similar to that of native speakers of Spanish. To address this issue, a timed grammaticality judgment task was used to analyze the effects on accuracy and reaction times of grammatical gender, morphology, and gender congruency of the article and adjective within a noun phrase. Overall results indicated no significant statistical differences between the native speakers and the two bilingual groups. Both early and late bilinguals displayed similar grammatical gender knowledge in their underlying grammars. A detailed examination of the congruency effect, however, revealed that the native speakers, not the bilinguals, displayed sensitivity to gender agreement violations. Moreover, the native and heritage speakers pattern together in accuracy and directionality of gender agreement processing: both were less accurate with incongruent articles than with incongruent adjectives, while the second language learners were equally accurate in both agreement domains. Despite having internalized gender in their implicit grammars, the late bilinguals did not show native-like patterns in real time processing. The present findings suggest that, for high proficiency speakers, there is a distinct advantage for early over late bilinguals in achieving native-like gender lexical access and retrieval. Therefore, age of acquisition, in conjunction with learning context, might be the best predictor of native-like gender agreement processing at advanced and near-native proficiency levels.

scholarly journals Eye-tracking and ERPs in multi-word expression research: A state-of-the-art review of the method and findings

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Siyanova
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Unique Role ◽  
Word Level ◽  
On Line ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the mechanisms that underlie on-line processing (comprehension and production) of units above the word level, known as multi-word expressions (MWEs). MWEs are a heterogeneous family of expressions that vary greatly in their linguistic properties but are perceived as highly conventional by native speakers. Extensive behavioural research has demonstrated that, due to their frequency and predictability, MWEs are processed differently from novel strings of language. At the very least, MWEs have been shown to be processed faster than matched control phrases. However, behavioural measures are limited in what they can tell us about MWE processing in the brain above and beyond the speed of processing. The present paper argues in favour of two powerful psycho-and neurolinguistic techniques-eye-tracking and event-related brain potentials (ERPs)-and presents a case for why these techniques are particularly suited for the investigation of phrasal frequency and predictive linguistic mechanisms. A number of studies that have drawn on these methods in their exploration of MWEs are reviewed, with a particular emphasis on the unique role of the method and its ability to tap into the underlying mechanisms implicated in MWE processing. It is argued that the two techniques complement, rather than duplicate each other, providing an ever richer account of the (psycho)linguistic phenomenon that MWEs are. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Effects of speech rate, phonetic background and gender on vowel reduction in the speech of nonnative speakers of English

2014 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogna Brzezicha ◽  
Małgorzata Kul
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers Of English ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThe paper reports the results of a study investigating vowel reduction in the speech of non-native speakers of English. The aim was to unravel the links between reduction and speech rate, phonetic training and gender. We hypothesized that (i) Polish speakers of English reduce vowels; (ii) they speak slower than native speakers; (iii) the higher the rate, the higher the reduction degree; (iv) speakers with phonetic training reduce less than those lacking it; (v) male subjects reduce more than the female ones. In order to realize these aims, an acoustic analysis of vowels was performed on 2 hrs 42 mins of speech produced by 12 Polish speakers of English. The subjects were di-vided into an experimental group consisting of 6 students of English and a control group with 6 speakers who had no phonetic training. The obtained results positively verify that non-native speakers reduce vowels and cast some doubts on whether they speak slower than native speakers. The role of rate and gender could not be established due to statistical and methodological issues. The group with no phonetic training outperformed the group which underwent phonetic training, pointing instead to the role of exposure and perhaps music training in acquiring native-like reduction patterns.

The production of gender agreement in native and L2 Spanish: The role of morphophonological form

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Foote
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
And Gender

In native speakers of gender-marking languages, mechanisms of gender production appear to be affected by the morphophonological cues to gender present in the noun phrase. This influence is manifested in higher levels of production accuracy when more transparent cues to gender are present in comparison to when they are not. The goal of the present study was to examine the role of morphophonological cues to gender in the production of gender agreement in native speakers and second language learners of Spanish in light of the Marking and Morphing account of agreement (Eberhard et al., 2005). Participants repeated and completed complex subject noun phrases with head nouns that varied in gender and gender-marking transparency. Analyses of accuracy rates along with Marking and Morphing model simulations of the results indicated that, contrary to previous findings, native speakers were not affected by gender-marking transparency. However, based on model simulations, second language (L2) learners were affected by the morphophonological form of the head noun.

The role of sex and gender in search behavior for political information on the internet

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Heike Kessler ◽  
Klara Langmann
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Search Behavior ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Online Search ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Online Search Behavior

AbstractPrevious studies have emphasized a person’s biological sex as a factor which influences online search behavior. This study aims to investigate how people (N = 44 students) search online for political information (N = 220 search tasks) and if gendered online search exists. We examined online search behavior via eye tracking while the participants searched for information about political party positions on the Internet. A content analysis of the eye tracking data followed and was evaluated with a special focus on the role of biological sex and social gender, and the relationship of both factors with other variables, such as self-reported prior political knowledge, political interest, and Internet skills (via an online survey). The results accord with previous studies in that the sex influences the online search process. However, this relationship was partially mediated by self-reported political interest and prior knowledge. This outcome calls for a more critical use of the sex variable in reference to political online search behavior, and the inclusion of sex and gender related variables.

scholarly journals Phonologic representation and speech perception: The role of pause

Diacrítica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-18
Author(s):  
Luciani Tenani ◽  
Geovana Soncin ◽  
Larissa Berti
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Disorders ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Perceptual Illusion ◽  
Identification Test ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Acoustic Pattern ◽  
Representational Level

We investigate the perception of pauses at intonational phrase (IP) boundaries in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and addresses the discussion about the relation between speech production and perception. Twenty adult subjects, native speakers of BP, with no language disorders and no hearing complaints, took part in an experimental pause identification test. We used auditory stimuli in which the IP-boundary was marked by a combination of pause and pitch variation or pitch variation only. The results are the following: (i) when stimuli consisted of a combination of pause with pitch variation in the IP-boundary, pauses were identified significantly (ii) when the stimuli did not have pitch variation on IP-boundaries, pauses were not identified significantly, (iii) when only pitch variation occurred, without pause production, pauses were identified in the tested boundary. These results support the argument that speech perception does not depend entirely on recovering an acoustic pattern and provide evidence for the importance of phonologic representation for the perception and organization of the perceived auditory stimulus. Based on the results, we argue that pause perception would result from the perceptual illusion marked by the combination of different types of linguistic information, at a phonetic-acoustic and representational level.

scholarly journals Seeing a Phrase " Time and Again" Matters: The Role of Phrasal Frequency in the Processing of Multiword Sequences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Siyanova ◽  
K Conklin ◽  
WJB van Heuven
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American Psychological Association ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Nonnative English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
American Psychological ◽  
Mixed Effects Modeling

Are speakers sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in language? The authors report an eye-tracking study that investigates this by examining the processing of multiword sequences that differ in phrasal frequency by native and proficient nonnative English speakers. Participants read sentences containing 3-word binomial phrases (bride and groom) and their reversed forms (groom and bride), which are identical in syntax and meaning but that differ in phrasal frequency. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that native speakers and nonnative speakers, across a range of proficiencies, are sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in English. Results also indicate that native speakers and higher proficiency nonnatives are sensitive to whether a phrase occurs in a particular configuration (binomial vs. reversed) in English, highlighting the contribution of entrenchment of a particular phrase in memory. © 2011 American Psychological Association.

Grammatical gender processing in L2 speakers of Spanish

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Halberstadt ◽  
Jorge R. Valdés Kroff ◽  
Paola E. Dussias
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
L1 Use ◽  
Gender Processing

Abstract Recent findings indicate that native speakers (L1) use grammatical gender marking on articles to facilitate the processing of upcoming nouns (e.g., Lew-Williams & Fernald, 2007; Dussias, Valdés Kroff, Guzzardo Tamargo, & Gerfen, 2013). Conversely, adult second language (L2) learners for whom grammatical gender is absent in their first language appear to need near-native proficiency to behave like native speakers (Dussias et al., 2013; Hopp, 2013). The question addressed here is whether sensitivity to grammatical gender in L2 learners of Spanish is modulated by the cognate status of nouns due to their heightened parallel orthographic, phonological, morpho-syntactic and semantic activation. Additionally, the role of transparent and non-transparent word-final gender marking cues was examined because past studies have shown that native speakers of Spanish are sensitive to differences in gender transparency (Caffarra, Janssen, & Barber, 2014). Participants were English learners of Spanish and Spanish monolingual speakers. Data were collected using the visual world paradigm. Participants saw 2-picture visual scenes in which objects either matched in gender (same-gender trials) or mismatched (different-gender trials). Targets were embedded in the preamble Encuentra el/la ___ ‘Find the ___’. The monolingual group displayed an anticipatory effect on different gender trials, replicating past studies that show that native speakers use grammatical gender information encoded in prenominal modifiers predictively. The learners were able to use gender information on the articles to facilitate processing, but only when the nouns had gender endings that were transparent. Cognate status did not confer an advantage during grammatical gender processing.

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