Abstract
In this visual-world paradigm we investigated the processing and interpretation of two overt subject anaphoric expressions in Greek, a null-subject language with a relatively free word-order, in relation to specific linguistic properties and whether these differ across adulthood. Specifically, we explored whether changes in anaphoric type (o ídhios vs. aftós) and syntactic complexity (SVO vs. OVS word-orders) had similar effects in how reference was processed and finally resolved by young and elderly adults. We analysed (a) fixation duration in subject and object antecedent pictures to examine online processing and (b) offline responses in comprehension questions to investigate final interpretation, i.e., ambiguity resolution. Our offline results revealed that pronominal resolution patterned across age groups: A clear subject preference of o ídhios (‘the same’) was drawn from results irrespective of the word-order used, suggesting that this expression is preferentially linked to an element in prior discourse that has a parallel subject grammatical role, due to its focus feature (though OVS boosted the less preferred object readings). Aftós (‘he’), a pronoun previously suggested sensitive to topic-shift, was overall proved ambiguous for both young and elderly adults. An age effect was qualified by significant differences in online processing of both subject expressions, as evidenced by fixation on both antecedent pictures. Interestingly, syntactic complexity (OVS structures) interacted with age in the case of o ídhios, raising fixation in subject antecedents among young, compared to the elderly adults. Age, but not linguistic manipulation, modulated processing of the anaphoric pronoun aftós and of object antecedent pictures overall.
Highlights
Anaphora resolution (AR) is the process of determining the antecedent of a pronoun, a phenomenon that has been extensively investigated across different languages and populations
We first explored whether age differences were exclusively related to the antecedents, and not to the third human figure depicting the object of the anaphoric clause, not mentioned in the time window examined to subsequently perform main analyses only in the subject and object pictures
To understand whether participants had a preference for the subject and/or object antecedents compared to the distractor character when resolving the ambiguity of the anaphoric expression, we examined the proportion of response preference for each picture
Summary
Anaphora resolution (AR) is the process of determining the antecedent of a pronoun, a phenomenon that has been extensively investigated across different languages and populations. 2015; Schumacher, Dangl & Uzun 2016; Schumacher, Roberts & Järvikivi 2017), its position in the sentence (e.g., Stevenson et al 1994) as well as the antecedent’s information and discourse status (e.g., Grosz et al 1995; Kaiser & Trueswell 2008; Colonna, Schimke & Hemforth 2012; Ellert 2013) As these properties always co-exist in AR, it is difficult to unpack the contribution of each factor and to identify which of these factors affect AR earlier or later in processing, during the integration stage when AR is complete. ‘The hunter.nom meets the fisherman.acc every afternoon in the forest by the river.’ OVS
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