Abstract
Previous research has shown that anaphor resolution in a non-native language may be more vulnerable to interference from structurally inappropriate antecedents compared to native anaphor resolution. To test whether previous findings on reflexive anaphors generalize to non-reflexive pronouns, we carried out an eye-movement monitoring study investigating the application of binding condition B during native and non-native sentence processing. In two online reading experiments we examined when during processing local and/or non-local antecedents for pronouns were considered in different types of syntactic environment. Our results demonstrate that both native English speakers and native German-speaking learners of English showed online sensitivity to binding condition B in that they did not consider syntactically inappropriate antecedents. For pronouns thought to be exempt from condition B (so-called “short-distance pronouns”), the native readers showed a weak preference for the local antecedent during processing. The non-native readers, on the other hand, showed a preference for the matrix subject even where local coreference was permitted, and despite demonstrating awareness of short-distance pronouns' referential ambiguity in a complementary offline task. This indicates that non-native comprehenders are less sensitive during processing to structural cues that render pronouns exempt from condition B, and prefer to link a pronoun to a salient subject antecedent instead.
Highlights
During language comprehension linguistic structure must be encoded, and rapid decisions about dependency formation such as pronominal reference need to be made
Planned pairwise comparisons showed that the non-local mismatch condition (9c) was read significantly more slowly than both the double match (9a) [t1(33) = 3.08, p < 0.01; t2(17) = 2.73, p < 0.05] and the local mismatch (9b) conditions [t1(33) = 2.36, p < 0.05; t2(17) = 2.57, p < 0.05] in first fixation durations, significantly more slowly than the double match condition in regression path [t1(33) = 3.34, p < 0.01; t2(17) = 2.06, p = 0.05] and total viewing times [t1(33) = 3.10, p < 0.01; t2(17) = 1.95, p = 0.07], and significantly more slowly than the local mismatch condition in total viewing times [t1(33) = 2.87, p < 0.01; t2(17) = 2.13, p < 0.05]
In the spillover region the L1s showed no significant differences between the experimental conditions whilst the L2s showed increased reading times for the non-local mismatch condition (9c), indicative of trying to link the pronoun to the matrix subject
Summary
During language comprehension linguistic structure must be encoded, and rapid decisions about dependency formation such as pronominal reference need to be made. Much of the recent debate in this area has been around the memory processes involved in long-distance dependencies, with particular reference to reflexive processing and subject-verb agreement (see Dillon, 2011, for an overview). An opposing view is that retrieval for reflexives exploits the cues carried on prior representations, so that, for example, a singular, masculine reflexive triggers a search for representations carrying the features singular and masculine. This second approach predicts that retrieval interference is possible from antecedents that are not structurally licensed (e.g., Patil, 2012)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
