Showing papers on "Antecedent (grammar) published in 1983"

Pronoun disambiguation: Accessing potential antecedents

Abstract: Two general classes of pronoun disambiguation processes are considered. In reading “Jack threw a snowball at Phil, but he missed,” both possible antecedents of “he” (“Jack” and “Phil”) may be accessed initially. Or, the actual antecedent alone may be accessed after sufficient semantic context is encoded. To evaluate these alternatives, a yes-no-probe recognition task was used to measure priming of the potential antecedents in sentence comprehension. Subjects read sentences similar to the example and were presented a test word immediately following each sentence. Response times for the actual antecedent (“Jack”) and nonantecedent (“Phil”) probes were obtained. Results indicated that the nonantecedent as well as the antecedent was activated (accessed) in pronoun disambiguation. This conclusion was not affected by the ordering of the antecedent and nonantecedent in the first clause.

Pronominal Reference: Child Language and the Theory of Grammar

Abstract: 1. An Approach to Language Acquisition.- 1.1. Language Acquisition Research and the Innateness Hypothesis.- 1.2. The Role of Experience.- 1.3. Hypothesis Formation and the Evaluation Metric.- 1.4. Implications for Language Acquisition Research.- Notes.- 2. Structural Restrictions on Pronominal Reference.- 2.1. The Domain of This Study.- 2.2. Structural Restrictions on Anaphora: A Brief History.- 2.3. Structural Restrictions on Anaphora: A Revision.- 2.3.1. A Problem with the C-Command Analysis.- 2.3.2. Structural Restrictions in Logical Form.- 2.3.3. Linear Order of Pronoun and Antecedent.- 2.3.4. Some Difficulties with C-Command.- 2.3.5. The Backward Anaphora Restriction (BAR).- 2.4. Linguistic and Psycholinguistic Relevance of the BAR.- 2.5. Summary.- Notes.- 3. The Acquisition of Restrictions on Pronominal Reference.- 3.1. Introduction.- 3.2. A Review of Some Previous Work on Children's Acquisition of Restrictions on Pronominal Reference.- 3.3. The Backward Anaphora Restriction (BAR) and the Language Acquisition Process.- 3.4. Experiment 1: The Acquisition of the Structural Restrictions on Anaphora.- 3.5. Experiment 2: Anaphora in Sentences with Preposed Complements.- 3.6. Experiment 3: Reflexives.- 3.7. Experiment 4: Forward Anaphora.- 3.8. General Discussion.- Notes.- 4. Strategies and Contrastive Stress.- 4.1. Some Pragmatic Factors in Choosing Antecedents.- 4.2. Limitations on the Use of Contextual Information: Processing Principles.- 4.3. The Parallel Function Strategy.- 4.4. The Use of Contrastive Stress.- 4.4.1. Contrastive Stress in General.- 4.4.2. Contrastive Stress and Anaphora.- 4.5. Conclusion.- Notes.- 5. Parallel Function and Contrastive Stress in Child Language.- 5.1. Children's Understanding of Contrastive Stress.- 5.2. Experiment on Contrastively Stressed Pronouns.- 5.3. Experiment on the Meaning of Parallel Function.- Notes.- 6. Some Conclusions.

The Evolution of Exchange Structures and Ranking: Some Northwest Coast and Athapaskan Examples

Abstract: The evolution of the matrilineal societies of the northern Northwest Coast is discussed in terms of a structuralist approach which seeks their antecedent structure. This hypothesized prototype is derived from a synchronic analysis of these societies. Neighboring Athapaskan societies retain this antecedent structure as their dominant structure.

Toward an East European Cinemarxism

Abstract: I believe in the avoidance of neologisms, and it embarrasses me (if only momentarily) to announce my subject with a made-up term that is also a pun. A new word is so often lacking in authenticity and complexity of references to antecedent reality and thinking; and puns, well …

L'ellipse et les relatives

Abstract: JACQUELINE BASTUJI: Ellipsis in relative clauses. The analysis by ellipsis of formally missing items is a touchstone for grammatical and linguistic theories. Since the relative clause of the Indo-European languages is not a universal structure, the absence of a «relative pronoun» cannot be treated as ellipsis in the languages that do not have the «antecedent NP + relative S» structure (Chinese and Turkish for instance), even though these languages have the operation of relativization defined as the embedding of an S (NP + VP) with all its constituents under an NP. Consequently, ellipsis of the relative pronoun (e. g. in object position in English) or of the antecedent NP (in French of Latin) is a possible solution only for the languages that require as part of their system that there should be a relation of redundant co-reference between the antecedentNP and the anaphoric element in the relative clause. Ellipsis of the relative pronoun seems to be syntactically constrained while ellipsis of the antecedent seems to be connected to a set of conditions that are syntactic as weIl as semantic. We reject the traditional idea of a relation between an antecedent which is already present and the relative clause and suggest that relativization be treated as the adjunction through predication of a property to an (empty or filled) N or NP, the property being specified by the relative clause which is of the form: S includes x. As the variable x is anempty place, ellipsis is out of the question. By a process of place filling, structures that are at first potential can be turned into a range of varied syntactic configurations.