The interpretation of pronominal reference by retarded and normal readers.

Abstract

Summary. Retarded and normal readers were required to interpret two clause sentences in which the pronominal subject of one clause agreed with the named subject of the other. If the pronominal subject appears in the main clause, the subjects cannot have the same identity. If it is in the subordinate clause, the subjects may have the same or different identities. Some sentences followed an indirect speech format in which the subordinate clause is usually preceded by the main; others contained subordinate clauses headed by an adverb, which are not fixed in relation to the main clause. A simple order based solution sometimes adopted by young children avoids the main and subordinate distinction: if the pronominal subject precedes the named subject its reference is restricted to a different identity (ID2). The retarded subjects produced significantly fewer ID2 interpretations when these were obligatory, confirming that syntactic problems may be implicated in reading retardation. The group × set interaction was not significant, although the normal readers were too advanced to apply the order strategy. Since the retarded readers did not spontaneously apply the order strategy the possibility of teaching it where the main: subordinate distinction is too difficult to operationalise is raised.