Antecedent (grammar)

About: Antecedent (grammar) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1392 publications have been published within this topic receiving 41824 citations.

Linguistic and cognitive prominence in anaphor resolution: topic, contrastive focus and pronouns

Abstract: This paper examines the role that linguistic and cognitive prominence play in the resolution of anaphor–antecedent relationships. In two experiments, we found that pronouns are immediately sensitive to the cognitive prominence of potential antecedents when other antecedent selection cues are uninformative. In experiment 1, results suggest that despite their theoretical dissimilarities, topic and contrastive focus both serve to enhance cognitive prominence. Results from experiment 2 suggest that the contrastive prosody appropriate for focus constructions may also play an important role in enhancing cognitive prominence. Thus different types of linguistic prominence (topic, contrastive focus) appear to have the common effect of increasing the cognitive prominence of the discourse referent. For pronouns with two possible antecedents, the cognitive prominence of an antecedent aids in anaphor resolution, immediately biasing selection towards the more prominent (and ultimately preferred) antecedent.

On anaphor binding in Russian

Abstract: It has been demonstrated that the reciprocal pronoun in Russian is a strict anaphor: it must have an antecedent in its governing category. The only respect in which the reciprocal is problematic for the formulation of Binding Theory assumed here is the absence of the i/i effect. The absence of the i/i effect is shared by the Russian reflexive pronouns, suggesting that the governing category is defined differently in Russian than in English. In particular, English imposes the requirement that the SUBJECT of a governing category not violate the ‘i-within-i’ well-formedness condition given in (29b), while Russian does not.

Comprehension of Sluiced Sentences.

Abstract: We report two reading experiments and two questionnaire studies designed to investigate the processing of “sluiced” sentences, like Somebody left- guess who. A self-paced reading experiment showed that sentences with explicit (overt) antecedents are read more quickly than sentences with implicit (covert) antecedents, both when the antecedents in question were arguments and when they were adjuncts. An eye movement experiment showed that sluiced sentences containing two potential antecedents were read faster than sentences containing only a single antecedent in matrix subject position. We suggest this is because only the ambiguous sentences contained an antecedent in a normal focus position (embedded object position). Two questionnaire studies suggested that perceivers prefer a focused constituent as the antecedent of the sluiced constituent. Since we argue that the interpretation of a sluiced constituent take place at the representational level of “logical form” (LF), we conclude that implicit arguments ar...

Reference Determination for Demonstrative Pronouns

Abstract: This paper discusses results from a corpus study of German demonstrative and personal pronouns and from a reading time experiment in which we compared the interpretation options of the two types of pronouns (Bosch et al. 2003, 2007). A careful review of exceptions to a generalisation we had been suggesting in those papers (the Subject Hypothesis: "Personal pronouns prefer subject antecedents and demonstratives prefer non-subject antecedents") shows that, although this generalisation correctly describes a tendency in the data, it is quite wrong in claiming that the grammatical role of antecedents is the relevant parameter. In the current paper we argue that the generalisation should be formulated in terms of information-structural properties of referents rather than in terms of the grammatical role of antecedent expressions.

Variables in Palauan syntax

Abstract: The analysis of unbounded dependencies in terms of Wh-movement lies at the heart of generative grammar. The components of this analysis are central concepts of the theory: the trace theory of movement rules, the Subjacency Condition, the ECP and recoverability, and the ordering of abstract levels of representation. One of the strengths of this analysis is that it has been found to apply consistently over a wide range of languages. However, it is this generality which poses a challenge to linguists analyzing unbounded dependencies in unfamiliar languages: one needs to maintain a characterization that appears to have universal validity, while giving the special properties of the language one is des- cribing their due weight in the analysis. In this paper I will describe the grammar of unbounded dependencies in an Austronesian language, Palauan, whose syntax at first appears to have quite unusual properties. First, although Palauan can be analyzed as having no syntactic Wh-movement, it has the full range of unbounded dependencies at S-structure. Second, though these dependencies involve the use both of gaps and resumptive pronouns, the distribution of gap and pronoun is unrelated either to island constraints or to the type of clause in which the binding takes place. Finally, though all the structures in question are base generated, they contain evidence that the variable, gap or pronoun, is bound to its antecedent at S-structure. This paper will attempt to show that most Of these phenomena can be accommodated within Government-Binding Theory (GB), while still allowing the special nature of Palauan grammar to emerge. Those phenomena that remain unaccounted for will be seen to be suggestive of parametric variation, and I will propose a way in which the theory might be adjusted to account for the Palauan facts.