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.

scholarly journals Microvariation in the division of labor between null- and overt-subject pronouns: the case of Italian and Spanish

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Carla Contemori ◽  
Elisa Di Domenico
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Comprehension Task ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Referential Choice

Abstract In Italian, null pronouns are typically interpreted toward antecedents in a prominent syntactic position, whereas overt pronouns prefer antecedents in lower positions. Interpretation preferences in Spanish are less clear. While comprehension and production have never been systematically compared in Italian and Spanish, here we look at the preferences for overt- and null-subject pronouns in the two languages using the same production and comprehension materials. Using an offline comprehension task with a group of Spanish and Italian speakers, we tested sentences where the type of pronoun (null vs. explicit) and position of the pronoun (anaphoric vs. cataphoric) are manipulated, to determine how context affects speakers’ interpretations in the two languages. With two production tasks, we measured referential choice in controlled discourse contexts, linking the production patterns to the differences observed in comprehension. Our results indicate microvariation in the two null-subject languages, with Spanish following the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis but to a lesser degree than Italian. More specifically, in Spanish, the weaker object bias for overt pronouns parallels with a higher use of overt pronouns (and with fewer null pronouns) in contexts of topic maintenance.

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 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 Thematic role and grammatical function affect pronoun production

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofiana-Iulia Lindemann ◽  
Stanca Mada ◽  
Laura Sasu ◽  
Madalina Matei
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Dimensional Approach ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Null Pronoun

According to different approaches to pronoun processing, in pro-drop languages, null pronouns are interpreted as referring back to the grammatical subject and topical referent, while overt pronouns are usually interpreted as coreferring with a non-subject and non-topical antecedent. The present study investigates whether thematic role and grammatical function impact (overt and null) pronoun production in Romania. Results show that we do not encounter a clear division of labour between the two pronoun forms triggered by syntactic structure alone and that thematic roles matter as well. The findings support a multi-dimensional approach, suggesting that different referential forms are constrained by different factors.

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

Anaphoric devices in written and spoken narrative discourse

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurora Bel ◽  
Joan Perera ◽  
Naymé Salas
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Pronominal Anaphora ◽  
Selection Of

In this study, we focus on pronominal anaphora and we investigate the referential properties of null and overt subject pronouns in Catalan, in the semi-spontaneous production of narrative spoken and written texts by three groups of speakers/writers (9–10, 12–13, and 15–16 year olds). We aimed at determining (1) pronoun preferences for a specific type of antecedent; (2) their specialization in a certain discourse function; and (3) whether the pattern is affected by text modality (spoken vs. written texts). We analyzed 30 spoken and 30 written narrative texts, produced by the same 30 subjects, divided into the age groups mentioned above. Results seem fairly consistent across age groups and modalities, showing that null pronouns tend to select antecedents in subject position and are well specialized in maintaining reference, while overt pronouns offer a less clear pattern both in their selection of antecedents and in the discourse function they perform. Our findings partially support those of previous research on other null-subject languages, in particular, the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis (PAH) formulated by Carminati (2002) for Italian.

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.

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.

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.

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