Pronominal anaphora resolution in Polish: Investigating online sentence interpretation using eye-tracking

The mechanism of anaphora resolution is subject to large cross-linguistic differences. The most likely reason for this is the different sensitivity of pronouns to the range of factors that determine their reference. In the current study, we explored the mechanism of anaphora resolution in Polish. First, we explored preferences in the interpretation of null and overt pronouns in ambiguous sentences. More specifically, we investigated whether Polish speakers prefer to relate overt pronouns to subject or object antecedents. Subsequently, we tested the consequences of violating this bias when tracing the online sentence-interpretation process using eye-tracking. Our results show that Polish speakers have a strong preference for interpreting null pronouns as referring to subject antecedents and interpreting overt pronouns as referring to object antecedents. However, in online sentence interpretation, only overt pronouns showed sensitivity to a violation of the speaker’s preference for a pronoun-antecedent match. This suggests that null pronoun resolution is more flexible than overt pronoun resolution. Our results indicate that it is much easier for Polish speakers to shift the reference of a null pronoun than an overt one whenever a pronoun is forced to refer to a less-preferred antecedent. These results are supported by naturalness ratings, which showed that null pronouns are considered equally natural regardless of their reference, while overt pronouns referring to subject antecedents are rated as considerably less natural than those referring to object antecedents. To explain this effect, we propose that the interpretation of null and overt pronouns is sensitive to different factors which determine their reference.

Interpretação Preferencial do Pronome Nulo em Falantes Bilíngues do Espanhol L2- Português Brasileiro L1 / Preferential Interpretation of the Null Pronoun in Spanish Bilingual Speakers L2- Brazilian Portuguese L1

Resumo: Esta pesquisa analisou o processamento anafórico de pronomes nulos (caracterizado como pro), investigando como esse tipo de expressão anafórica é interpretada por falantes bilíngues espanhol L2- português brasileiro L1, e se as gramáticas, aqui entendidas como conhecimentos internalizados sobre determinadas línguas, nos termos de Chomsky (1981), interferem umas nas outras na interpretação preferencial nas frases ambíguas. Tem-se como objetivo investigar a interpretação preferencial do pronome nulo na língua espanhola, analisando a preferência em frases ambíguas. Este estudo justifica-se por haver necessidade de dirimir controvérsias na literatura acerca das retomadas anafóricas, sobretudo em frases ambíguas, nas quais possivelmente há interferência dos mecanismos linguísticos da língua materna, utilizada pelo aprendiz. Muitos pesquisadores tentam compreender o funcionamento do processamento linguístico de uso da língua nos bilíngues, os quais falam duas línguas com competência igual ou similar a de um nativo (GONÇALVES, 2010). Ancoramos nossa hipótese nos princípios de Carminati (2005), que apontam que o pronome nulo em frases ambíguas estabelece preferencialmente a correferência com o antecedente em posição de sujeito, e também na a Hipótese da Interface de Sorace (2011), referente a influência da L1 na interpretação da correferência, já que os bilíngues estão sujeitos a utilizar os mesmos mecanismos de sua gramática L1 na L2 em situações de ambiguidade. A metodologia aplicada foi um teste off-line no Google forms, composto por perguntas sobre a preferência da retomada em frases ambíguas, associadas a frases distratoras, no qual participaram 08 voluntários bilíngues em nível avançado, estudantes do 9º período do curso de Letras – Português/Espanhol da Universidade de Pernambuco. Os resultados encontrados corroboram com a Hipótese da Posição do Antecedente de acordo com Carminati (2005) e com a Hipótese de Interface de Sorace (2011). Palavras-chave: Bilinguismo. Correferência anafórica. Interpretação preferencial. Pronome nulo. Abstract: This research analyzed the anaphoric processing of null pronouns (characterized as pro), investigating how this type of anaphoric expression is interpreted by bilingual Spanish L2-Portuguese L1 speakers, and if the grammars, here understood as internalized knowledge about certain languages, in terms by Chomsky (1981), interfere with each other in the preferential interpretation of ambiguous sentences. The objective is to investigate the preferential interpretation of the null pronoun in Spanish, analyzing the preference in ambiguous sentences. This study is justified by the need to resolve controversies in the literature about anaphoric retakes, especially in ambiguous sentences, in which there is possibly interference from the linguistic mechanisms of the mother tongue, used by the learner. Many researchers try to understand the functioning of linguistic processing of language use in bilinguals, who speak two languages with equal or similar competence to a native (GONÇALVES, 2010). We anchor our hypothesis in the principles of Carminati (2005), which point out that the null pronoun in ambiguous sentences preferentially establishes the correlation with the antecedent in subject position, and also in the Interface Hypothesis of Sorace (2011), regarding the influence of L1 in the interpretation of the coreference, since bilinguals are subject to using the same mechanisms of their L1 grammar in L2 in situations of ambiguity. The methodology applied was an offline test on Google forms, consisting of questions about the preference of retaking ambiguous phrases, associated with distracting phrases, in which 08 bilingual volunteers at advanced level participated, students of the 9th period of the Language course - Portuguese /Spanish from the University of Pernambuco. The results found corroborate the Antecedents Position Hypothesis according to Carminati (2005) and the Interface Hypothesis of Sorace (2011).Keywords: Bilingualism. Anaphoric Coreference. Preferred interpretation. Null pronoun.

Pronominal anaphora resolution in Polish: investigating online sentence interpretation using eye-tracking.

The mechanism of anaphora resolution is subject to large cross-linguistic differences. The most likely reason for this is the different sensitivity of pronouns to pragmatic and syntactic cues of reference. In the current study, we explored the mechanism of anaphora resolution in Polish. First, in an ambiguous sentence-interpretation task, we explored the natural biases that occur during the interpretation of null or overt pronouns. More specifically, we investigated whether Polish speakers prefer to relate overt pronouns to antecedents which are in the syntactic position of a subject or an object. Subsequently, we tested the consequences of violation of this bias when tracing the online sentence-interpretation process using eye-tracking. Our results show that Polish speakers have a strong preference for interpreting null pronouns as referring to antecedents in a subject position and for interpreting overt pronouns as referring to antecedents in an object position. However, in online sentence interpretation, only overt pronouns showed sensitivity to violation of the speaker’s natural preferences for a pronoun-antecedent match. We found the null pronoun resolution to be more flexible than that of overt pronouns. Our results indicate that it is much easier for Polish speakers to shift the reference of a null pronoun than an overt one whenever a pronoun is forced to refer to a less-preferred antecedent. We propose that this is because the interpretation of null and overt pronouns is sensitive to the different cues which determine their reference. Overall, in the Polish language, interpretation of a null pronoun seems to be more sensitive to pragmatic cues of reference than syntactic cues of reference, while resolution of overt pronouns relies strongly on syntax-based cues.

Clitic pronouns in Archaic Chinese

This article provides evidence for the so far neglected existence of two clitic pronouns, yǐ 以 and yǔ 與, in Archaic Chinese (10th c. – 3th c. bc) in immediately verb-adjacent position: ‘yǐ/yǔ-V’. While yǔ only encodes the comitative/associative, yǐ encodes all kinds of (argument and adjunct) roles, depending on the semantics of the verb involved. We argue that the clitic pronouns yǐ and yǔ can neither be analysed as stranded prepositions left behind after extraction of their complement (as, e.g., in English) nor as orphan prepositions, i.e., PPs with an in situ null pronoun as complement (as, e.g., in French). This ties in with the general ban against prepositions lacking an overt complement, observed throughout the history of Chinese.

Testing children’s knowledge of generic null pronouns

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

Thematic role and grammatical function affect pronoun production

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.

Anaphoric Processing of the Null Pronoun in Monolingual Speakers of Brazilian Portuguese: An Online Study

The aim of this paper was to investigate anaphoric processing of the null pronoun in Brazilian Portuguese and determine whether the perception of morphological gender features has a disambiguating effect during the process of reading. This feature enables the anaphoric null pronoun to be interpreted as referring to either the subject or object. We assume the proposal put forth by Carminati (2005) regarding the resolution of the null subject pronoun, which is based on the investigation of the processing of full and null pronouns in Italian. The sample of the present study was composed of 32 speakers of university-level Brazilian Portuguese. The stimuli were temporal adverbial subordinate clauses with the manipulation of the gender feature in the participle as disambiguating information. The authors used the self-paced reading experimental paradigm with a control response. The results were in line with that predicted by the Feature Strength Hypothesis and Antecedent Position Hypothesis put forth by Carminati (2005). References Ariel, M. (1991). The function of accessibility in a theory of grammar. Journal of Pragmatics, 16(5), 443-463. doi: 10.1016/0378-2166(91)90136-L Carminati, M. N. (2002). The processing of Italian subject pronouns. Dissertação de doutoramento, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications. Carminati, M. N. (2005). Processing reflexes of the Feature Hierarchy (Person > Number > Gender) and implications for linguistic theory. Lingua, 115, 259–285. doi: 10.1016/j.lingua.2003.10.006 Lasnik, H. & Lohndal, T. (2017). Noam Chomsky. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.356 Duarte, M. E. L. (2015) A perda do princípio “Evite Pronome” no Português Brasileiro. Campinas, SP: EDUNICAMP. Filiacia, F. Soracea, A., Carreiras M. (2013) Anaphoric biases of null and overt subjects in Italian and Spanish: a cross-linguistic comparison. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, doi: 10.1080/01690965.2013.801502 Gelormini-Lezama, C., Almor, A. (2011). Repeated names, overt pronouns, and null pronouns in Spanish, Language and Cognitive Processes, 26(3), 437-454. doi: 10.1080/01690965.2010.495234 Gonçalves, A. V. G., Sousa, M. L. (2012). Ciências Da Linguagem: O Fazer Cientifico?. (1. Ed.). São Paulo, SP. Editora Mercado de letras. Grosjean, F. (1996). Living with Two Languages and Two Cultures. In I. Parasnis, Ed. Cultural and language diversity and the deaf experience. (pp. 20-37). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaiser, E., Fedele, E. (2019). Reference resolution: a psycholinguistic perspective. J. Gundel & B. Abbott, (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Reference. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687305.013.15 Lapertua, M. (2004) Sujeito nulo na aquisição: um parâmetro em mudança – sujeito preenchido na aprendizagem: a eterna tentativa de mudança. Revista do Gelne, 6(1), 141. Limberger, B., Buchweitz, A. (2012). Estudos sobre a relação entre bilinguismo e cognição: o controle inibitório e a memória de trabalho. Letrônica, 5(3), 67-87, Lucchesi, D. (2009). A realização do sujeito pronominal. In D. Lucchesi, A. Baxter, & I. Ribeiro, (Eds.). O português afro-brasileiro (pp. 165-183). Salvador, BA: EDUFBA. Presuss, E. O., Finger, I. F. (2018). A dinâmica do Processamento Bilíngue. Campinas, SP. Pontes Editoras. Veríssimo, V. (2017). A evolução do conceito de parâmetro do sujeito nulo. Entrepalavras, Fortaleza, 7, 76-90. Xavier, G. R. (2006). Português Brasileiro como Segunda Língua: Um Estudo sobre o Sujeito Nulo. Campinas, SP: EDUNICAMP.

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

The 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.

Role of structural priming in contact-induced change: Subject pronoun expression in L1 Turkish by Turkish-Dutch bilinguals

Subject pronoun expression has been extensively studied for effects of language contact, but it is fairly recent that these studies started including cross-language structural priming paradigms. The earlier studies on subject pronoun use in Turkish spoken by Turkish-Dutch bilinguals did not find any difference from monolingual speakers of Turkish but reported a few instances of unconventional use of subject pronouns, indicating the influence of Dutch on Turkish. This study aimed to determine whether structural priming may have a part in the unconventional variation observed in subject pronoun use in Turkish in contact with Dutch. Twenty-eight Turkish-Dutch bilinguals listened to short stories and responded to subsequently presented instructive sentences. These sentences were prime sentences, which contained either an overt or a null subject pronoun. Priming effects were investigated in monolingual and bilingual settings by presenting the stories in Turkish in the former and in Dutch in the latter. Results yielded a higher likelihood of using overt subject pronouns in the bilingual than in the monolingual setting following a prime sentence with an overt rather than a null pronoun. Our findings, which are based on a structure and a language that have not yet been studied much in relation to structural priming (i.e., subject pronoun use in Turkish), strengthen the empirical basis of how structural priming influences syntactic choices in language contact settings.

Lexical frequency and morphosyntactic variation

The role of frequency in language variation has received a great deal of attention in recent years, especially in phonology. Recently, Erker and Guy (2012) extended the analysis of frequency to morphosyntactic variation and examined frequency effects in variation between null and overt subject personal pronouns (SPPs) in New York City Spanish. Their results suggest that frequency activates or amplifies the effects of other influences on speakers’ choices between overt and null pronouns, such as person and number. Here we attempt to replicate their study. Analysis of more than 8,600 examples of possible sites of SPP variation collected from Mexican immigrant and Mexican American Spanish shows that frequency has only a small effect on a speaker’s choice between an overt and a null pronoun. The results presented here suggest that factors such as a change in reference from the subject of the preceding tensed verb or the person and number of the verb operate independently of frequency effects and provide a better explanation of observed patterns of variation than frequency.