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.

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

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.

Generalised Crossover

Crossover (CO) is a constraint on anaphoric dependencies, according to which, quantifier scope can feed pronominal anaphora unless the anaphoric expression precedes the quantifier. We demonstrate that effects reminiscent of CO arise with presupposition as well, and propose to generalise CO as follows: Projective content (quantifier scope, presupposition projection, etc.) feeds semantic dependencies (pronominal anaphora, presupposition satisfaction), unless the semantically dependent expression precedes the trigger of the projective content. We call this generalisation, Generalised Crossover (GCO). Although we cannot offer a full explanation for GCO in this paper, we will discuss its implications for recent theories of CO.

Pronominal Anaphora Resolution on Spanish Text

Recent technological advances have allowed the development of numerous natural language processing applications with which users frequently interact. When interacting with this type of application, users often search for the economy of words, which promotes the use of pronouns, thereby highlighting the well-known anaphora problem. This chapter describes a proposal to approach the pronominal anaphora for the Spanish language. A set of rules (based on the Eagle standard) was designed to identify the referents of personal pronouns through the structure of the grammatical tags of the words. The proposed algorithm uses the online Freeling service to perform tokenization and tagging tasks. The performance of the algorithm was compared with an online version of Freeling, and the proposed algorithm shows better performance.

METAPHORICAL CHAINS AND REFERENCE USAGE IN NEWSPAPERS: A MECHANISM FOR TEXTUAL COHESION

This article examines the phenomenon of metaphor in newspapers, focusing on the use of multiple metaphors of the same type used to form a coherent chain. These metaphoric chains are treated within the frame of Halliday’s Systemic Function Grammar (SFG) as a feature of textual cohesion. The different cohesion features recognised by SFG are briefly presented. Features including pronominal anaphora, ellipsis, and reference by definite noun phrases are, in different studies, believed to play the same role as generic ‘referencing’. On the other hand, as different words or expressions chosen within the same source domain, metaphoric chains are connected to the feature of lexical cohesion. They form a single network of links through the entire text, guaranteeing global cohesion. Many questions are left unanswered and thus the conclusions advocate for an extensive corpus-based study aimed at accounting for the relation of the two phenomena and the cultural motivations of the use of metaphors.