Showing papers on "Antecedent (grammar) published in 1999"

Movement and Control

Abstract: Since the earliest days of generative grammar, control has been distinguished from raising: the latter the product of movement operations, the former the result of construal processes relating a PRO to an antecedent. This article argues that obligatory control structures are also formed by movement. Minimalism makes this approach viable by removing D-Structure as a grammatical level. Implementing the suggestion, however, requires eliminating the last vestiges of D-Structure still extant in Chomsky's (1995) version of the Minimalist Program. In particular, it requires dispensing with the θ-Criterion and adopting the view that θ-roles are featurelike in being able to license movement.

Noun-phrase anaphora and focus : The informational load hypothesis

Abstract: The processing of noun-phrase (NP) anaphors in discourse is argued to reflect constraints on the activation and processing of semantic information in working memory. The proposed theory views NP anaphor processing as an optimization process that is based on the principle that processing cost, defined in terms of activating semantic information, should serve some discourse function--identifying the antecedent, adding new information, or both. In a series of 5 self-paced reading experiments, anaphors' functionality was manipulated by changing the discourse focus, and their cost was manipulated by changing the semantic relation between the anaphors and their antecedents. The results show that reading times of NP anaphors reflect their functional justification: Anaphors were read faster when their cost had a better functional justification. These results are incompatible with any theory that treats NP anaphors as one homogeneous class regardless of discourse function and processing cost.

The Effects of Past Performance on Top Management Team Conflict in Strategic Decision Making

Abstract: Research into the antecedents of TMT conflict has become increasingly popular in light of the effects that conflict can have on strategic decision making and organizational performance. Of course, such performance becomes a part of the contextual backdrop against which future decisions are made. Thus, organizational performance is itself an important antecedent of TMT conflict. Using data drawn from the TMTs of 44 mid‐sized public firms, we demonstrate that cognitive and affective conflict relate differently to past performance. The implications of this research for efforts to effectively manage conflict during strategic decision making are discussed.

Antecedent Factors Differentiating Women and Men in Science/Nonscience Careers

Abstract: Factors that differentiate women and men who choose a science career from those who do not were investigated using longitudinal data from 1980 and 1990. The participants (N = 459) were ninth or twe...

A Mentoring Model for Management in Sport and Physical Education

Abstract: Several authors (Dreher & Ash, 1990; Fagenson, 1989, 1992; Hunt & Michael, 1983; Kram, 1985; Newby & Heide, 1992; Scandura, 1992) have emphasized the importance of mentoring in facilitating onc's progress through a career in management. This paper presents a mentoring model that combines the various factors impinging on mentoring and the associated outcomes in a compre hensive framework. In the model, a set of antecedent mentor and protege characteristics, including demogaphics and traits. lead to certain mentoring functions, which subsequently result in specified outcomes. The stages of a mentoring relationship—initiation, cultivation, and redefinition—are explained. Mentoring functions. relate both lo career mobility and personal achievement and growth. Mentoring benefits al1 parties—protege, mentor, and organization. The model also includes intervening variables that modify the relationships among antecedents. mentoring stages and functions, and outcome variable. The paper outlines implications of and ...

Antecedent Priming at Trace Positions: Evidence from German Scrambling

Abstract: In Chomsky's theory of grammar, syntactic representations are said to contain movement traces, i.e., syntactically active but phonetically null copies of displaced constituents. Correspondingly, traces have been claimed to form part of the processing of sentence structure by showing that at trace sites the parser reactivates a moved constituent. This view has been contested, however, by researchers arguing that experimental findings can better be explained in terms of direct associations between subcategorizers and arguments. Against this background, we investigate antecedent reactivation effects in scrambled double-object constructions of German in two cross-modal priming experiments. We found significant priming effects at positions at which a movement analysis of these constructions would postulate an empty category, thus suggesting that the antecedent is indeed reactivated at the gap position. The Direct Association Hypothesis, on the other hand, cannot account for the priming effects we found. Implications for processing and for syntactic analyses of scrambling in German will be discussed.

Precursors to schizophrenia: do biological markers have specificity?

Abstract: This review addresses childhood antecedents and biological markers of schizophrenia within a neurodevelopmental framework. General-population birth-cohort studies illustrate delays in developmental...

Focus, Parallelism and Accommodation

Abstract: It is well-known that constructions involving ellipsis (i .e. construction in which semantically interpreted material is not realized phonologically, henceforth ECs) share many properties with constructions that involve phonological reduction (in which semantically interpreted material is realized phonologically but in a reduced form, henceforth PRCs) . (See, among others, Lasnik 1 972, Chomsky and Lasnik 1 993 , Rooth 1 992 and Tancredi 1 992.) The similarity between ECs and PRCs is semantic: the interpretation of both is constrained by the interpretation of an antecedent (Parallelism) . Rooth and Tancredi have pointed out that this similarity follows from an independently needed theory of focus. However, there are also differences in the interpretation of ECs and PRCs. The semantic restrictions on ECs appear to be stronger than the restrictions on PRCs. Specifically, there are cases in which phonological reduction (PR) is licensed via Parallelism with an antecedent which is not present in the discourse (accommodation) , and in (at least some of) these cases ellipsis (E) is not licensed. This fact has motivated Rooth ( 1 992) to propose a special identity condition which applies to E but not to PRo Under this proposal, the similarity between the two constructions follows from the theory of focus (which applies to both constructions) and the difference follows from the identity condition (which applies only to one) . The aim of this paper is to argue for an alternative. Specifically, I will argue that the difference between ECs and PRCs follows from an economy condition on accommodation which is relevant for both constructions but is sensitive to properties that distinguish between them.

Differences Between the Morphology of Gender and Number: Evidence from Establishing Coreferences

Abstract: This work investigates the processing of gender and number features in the selection of a pronoun antecedent in Italian. In Italian there are instances of nouns in which gender and number are treated morphologically on a par, i.e., overtly and regularly marked by a suffix. In these cases, are the two features also treated similarly in processing? The experiments used sentences with two possible antecedents (differing in gender or number) in the main clause and a pronoun in the complement clause. The sentences were visually presented, with a unimodal lexical decision task at the end of the sentence. The results showed a selective reactivation of the antecedent matching the pronoun in either gender or number. The results are discussed in relation to previous Italian experiments, which found that in sentence internal position there is selective reactivation of only the number-matching antecedent. They are taken to support a model of the coreference processor in which gender and number features are used at different processing stages, due to their different syntactic representation.

A-definites and the discourse status of implicit arguments

Abstract: This paper focuses on the semantics of implicit arguments and compares it with that of explicit indefinites with which they can be truth-conditionally paraphrased. It is shown that once the discourse-potential of expressions is taken into account, the semantics of implicit arguments differs from their indefinite explicit counterparts. They are shown to be semantically identical to a particular kind of non-quantificational NP (a-definites) which are characterized by their inability to serve as antecedents for future reference. A model of this behavior of implicit arguments, it is argued, follows naturally from the underlying assumption of Discourse Representation Theory that semantic representations must include two kinds of information, a set of available discourse markers and a set of predicative conditions. Because implicit arguments satisfy a predicate's argument positions without introducing discourse markers into the Discourse Representation Structure of a sentence, they cannot serve as the antecedent of definite pronouns. When they do enter into anaphoric relations it is not through discourse markers equality clauses, but instead is the result of either lexical identification of variables (via semantic detransitivization or meaning postulates) or of an accommodation process which involves bridging and/or factoring interferences.

Presupposition Projection as Proof Construction

Abstract: Van der Sandt’s (1992) anaphoric account of presupposition is generally considered to be the theory which makes the best empirical predictions about presupposition projection (see e.g. Beaver 1997:983). The main insight is that there is an interesting correspondence between the behavior of anaphoric pronouns in discourse and the projection of presuppositions in complex sentences. Van der Sandt proposes to ‘resolve’ presuppositions just like anaphoric pronouns are resolved in Discourse Representation Theory (DRT, Kamp & Reyle, 1993). Van der Sandt contends that there is also an important difference between pronouns and presuppositions: when there is no antecedent for an anaphoric pronoun, the sentence containing the pronoun cannot be interpreted. However, when there is no antecedent for a presupposition — and the presupposition has sufficient descriptive content — then the presupposition can be accommodated and, as it were, create its own antecedent. This combination of resolution and accommodation constitutes the empirical strength of van der Sandt’s approach.

A distinction among features: the role of gener and number in the retrieval of pronoun antecendents

Abstract: We investigated the use of two O-features, gender and number, in pronoun antecedent identification in six experiments in Italian. In a previous work (Di Domenico & De Vincenzi 1996) we found that 1000 msec after the presentation of a pronoun only number information is used to restrict the set of possible antecedents for the pronoun, whereas gender information is not. Here we add two experiments with onset of the target word at 500 msec, which show that neither number nor gender are used. The conclusion is thus that while number information is used within 500 and 1000 msec to restrict the reactivation of pronoun antecedents, gender is not. The results are compared to previous experiments conducted in English by Nicol (1988). The author found an immediate use of number information but a less clear result for gender, possibly due to the fact that in English gender is not marked on the same way as number is. Our study in Italian, with nouns where gender and number are equally overtly and regularly marked, suggests that the different use of gender and number is not specific to English nor has to do with the surface markedness of features, but, on the contrary, is to be attributed to an intrinsic difference between the two features. This difference is characterized in terms of a different syntactic representation of the two features, as assumed in recent proposals in linguistic theory, and of the parser's modular use of linguistic information.*

Exceptional Binding with Psych Verbs

Abstract: As has been well known since Postal 1970, 1971, an anaphor inside the subject of a psych verb with an experiencer object can take the object as its antecedent, in apparent violation of the C-Command Condition on binding [1] : Stories about herself generally worry Mary). Proposed explanations for this phenomenon generally follow two different lines. One states that the configurational representation of s[11s]1 is distinct from the transitive relation implied by the surface arrangement (Belletti and Rizzi 1988, Pesetsky 1987, 1995). The other treats [1] as resulting from a long-distance anaphor operation : on this view, the binding conditions are not sensitive to pure syntactic configurationality ; rather, they are sensitive to other prominence judgments about the antecedent (Giorgi 1984, Lebeaux 1985). The goal of this squib is to evaluate these two proposals in relation to facts of Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Although we do not offer a solution in a theoretical framework for the issues we address here, this evaluation is relevant because it reveals pecularities of psych verb constructions in BP that strongly suggest a revision of these proposals, which are generally well accepted in the litterature

French Body-Parts and the Semantics of Binding

Abstract: This paper discusses the grammar of the French Inalienable Possession Construction (IPC). It is argued that the IPC involves an unexpressed reflexive anaphor. The antecedent of this reflexive anaphor must satisfy a semantic condition which requires consideration of thematic lexical entailments. The model-theoretic nature of this constraint suggests that the range of semantic information relevant to syntactic processes goes beyond the formal configuration of semantic metalanguages. It also shows that the semantic conditions which anaphors can impose on their antecedents are not restricted to thematic ranking or center of perspective restrictions. An analysis of the construction within Head-driven Phrase-Structure Grammar is provided.

Corpus-based anaphora resolution towards antecedent preference

Abstract: In this paper we propose a corpus-based approach to anaphora resolution combining a machine learning method and statistical information. First, a decision tree trained on an annotated corpus determines the coreference relation of a given anaphor and antecedent candidates and is utilized as a filter in order to reduce the number of potential candidates. In the second step, preference selection is achieved by taking into account the frequency information of coreferential and non-referential pairs tagged in the training corpus as well as distance features within the current discourse. Preliminary experiments concerning the resolution of Japanese pronouns in spoken-language dialogs result in a success rate of 80.6%.

A generalized rightward movement analysis of Antecedent Contained Deletion

Abstract: In this paper, we will argue that the LF Object Shift analysis of the infinite regress resolution of Antecedent Contained Deletion is untenable conceptually and empirically. Generalizing Baltin's (1987) CP Extraposition analysis, we will instead propose that any type of rightward movement, including NP and PP Rightward Shift, is available for the infinite regress resolution. Furthermore, we will show that our generalized rightward movement analysis explains a wider range of data than the LF Object Shift analysis. Finally, we will address a question as to why rightward movement, which is non-feature checking movement, is triggered/involved in Antecedent Contained Deletion. We will suggest a way to derive this property under the assumptions of Chomsky's (1993, 1995) Minimalist Program.

Reciprocals and Cumulation

Abstract: A is the meaning of the antecedent of the reciprocal and R is the reciprocal relation (like in the example in (2» . While strong reciprocity (SR) accurately describes the truth conditions of (2a) , there are examples where SR is too strong. That is, there are reciprocal sentences that are judged to be true even though SR cannot be met. (4a) is an example. Imagine that the children are standing in a long line, ot in a circle. It is not the case that everyone is touching everyone else. The intuitive truth conditions are stated in (4b) .

Adult-Child Interactions as Related to Adult's Family History and Child's Attachment

Abstract: The objective of this study was to investigate separately the contribution of mother characteristics and child characteristics in dyadic interactions. This study was conducted in a unique setting, ...

Argument Structure and Animacy Restrictions on Anaphora

Abstract: This paper presents a new constraint, the Antecedent Closeness Constraint (ACC), which unifies the binding properties of control, Super Equi-NP constructions, picture NPs, and anaphors as specifiers of NPs (in English). The focus will be on the last three cases, which share the property of containing an anaphoric element that is exempt from binding theory (see section 4 for examples of the data under consideration).2 The formal theory I am assuming is Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG; Pollard and Sag (1987, 1994)), with the version of binding theory presented in Asudeh (1998) and briefly reviewed below. The ACC formalizes the following facts about the antecedents of these anaphors: 1) animacy of antecedents matters for these constructions; 2) order also matters: any nonexpletive nominal that commands an anaphor can be an antecedent for , so long as no animate potential antecedent is closer to than is; 3) this in effect sets up a chain composed of potential antecedents and having the anaphor as its tail: h(animate), inanimate*, anaphori. The presentation is as follows: in section 2, I quickly review some relevant HPSG binding notions; section 3 presents the ACC; finally, section 4 shows the application of the ACC to the data.

Reconciling Dependent Plurals with "Each Other"

Abstract: In this paper I discuss the interpretation of dependent plural pronouns (pronouns bound by a distributing definite antecedent), and argue that they should be treated as “donkey” pronouns involving restricted functions. Such pronouns have been central to the study of reciprocals, and I follow in the tradition of studying the interaction of the two. Most analyses of the reciprocal allow it the option of finding its “range” argument through movement or binding to a non-local antecedent. I argue that such “long distance” reciprocals are insufficiently motivated, and cannot handle the full range of constructions involving dependent pronouns. I show that the proposed functional analysis of dependent pronouns makes it possible to account for “long distance” reciprocals without resorting to wide scope, by referring directly to the functional translation of their antecedent.

Locality theory: Competing models of weak islands

Abstract: This paper explores two questions, related to Chomsky's (1981) ECP, under which traces must have a proper government relation either to a head, or to an antecedent. The first question concerns the definition of proper head government. Section 1 argues that at least Rizzi's (1990) and Cinque's (1991) referential indices can be dispensed with once the LF syntax of wh-constructions is properly understood. The second question concerns the definition of antecedent government. Section 2 shows that antecedent based conceptions of locality, such as Rizzi's (1990) Relativized Minimality (cf. Chomsky's 1995 Minimal Link Condition) and non-antecedent based notions, such Chomsky's (1986a) (rigid) Minimality, can be equivalent, at least for phrasal movement, given appropriate assumptions

A Preliminary Investigation Of Antecedents To Role Stress In Retail Alliances

Abstract: This research examines the emergence of role stress in retail alliances. A theoretical model is developed that implicates contractual mechanisms, dedicated assets, and communication modality as antecedent to role conflict and ambiguity. The model is examined via data gathered with 220 managers of dual-branded retail oil outlets in Norway. Results of the examination indicate that role conflict emerges due to specific assets and contractual factors. By contrast, role ambiguity is associated with asset specificity and communication modality. The study concludes with a brief discussion of theoretical and managerial implications.

An Estimate of Referent of Noun Phrases in Japanese Sentences

Abstract: In machine translation and man-machine dialogue, it is important to clarify referents of noun phrases. We present a method for determining the referents of noun phrases in Japanese sentences by using the referential properties, modifiers, and possessors of noun phrases. Since the Japanese language has no articles, it is difficult to decide whether a noun phrase has an antecedent or not. We had previously estimated the referential properties of noun phrases that correspond to articles by using clue words in the sentences. By using these referential properties, our system determined the referents of noun phrases in Japanese sentences. Furthermore we used the modifiers and possessors of noun phrases in determining the referents of noun phrases. As a result, on training sentences we obtained a precision rate of 82% and a recall rate of 85% in the determination of the referents of noun phrases that have antecedents. On test sentences, we obtained a precision rate of 79% and a recall rate of 77%.

Determining the Antecedent of Noun Phrase Containing the Determiner KONO or SONO in Japanese

Abstract: This paper offers a method for determining referent (antecedent) of the noun phrase containing determiner "kono (this)" or "sono (that, its)" in Japanese. It uses in the determination of the antecedent a statistical measure of conceptual similarities, taken from a corpus, between each candidate for the antecedent and the modeficand of kono or sono. We describe our method and an algorithm. We then show an experiment that has given us an overall success rate of 85.2%. Our method is applicable to solve other semantic problems than that for finding the antecedent of noun phrase containing the determiner kono or sono.