Anaphoric Expressions Research Articles

Memorization-Based Training and Testing Paradigm for Robust Vocal Identity Recognition in Expressive Speech Using Event-Related Potentials Analysis.

Recognizing familiar speakers from vocal streams is a fundamental aspect of human verbal communication. However, it remains unclear how listeners can still discern the speaker's identity in expressive speech. This study develops a memorization-based individual speaker identity recognition approach and an accompanying electroencephalogram (EEG) data analysis pipeline, which monitors how listeners recognize familiar speakers and tell unfamiliar ones apart. EEG data captures online cognitive processes during new versus old speaker distinction based on voice, offering a real-time measure of brain activity, overcoming limits of reaction times and accuracy measurements. The paradigm comprises three steps: listeners establish associations between three voices and their names (training); listeners indicate the name corresponding to a voice from three candidates (checking); listeners distinguish between three old and three new speaker voices in a two-alternative forced-choice task (testing). The speech prosody in testing was either confident or doubtful. EEG data were collected using a 64-channel EEG system, followed by preprocessing and imported into RStudio for ERP and statistical analysis and MATLAB for brain topography. Results showed an enlarged late positive component (LPC) was elicited in the old-talker compared to the new-talker condition in the 400-850 ms window in the Pz and other wider range of electrodes in both prosodies. Yet, the old/new effect was robust in central and posterior electrodes for doubtful prosody perception, whereas the anterior, central, and posterior electrodes are for confident prosody condition. This study proposes that this experiment design can serve as a reference for investigating speaker-specific cue-binding effects in various scenarios (e.g., anaphoric expression) and pathologies in patients like phonagnosia.

Anaphoric Expressions in Thai Narratives: A Corpus Study on Accessibility and Distributional Tendency

Abstract This study examines the relationship between Thai anaphoric expressions and their antecedents’ Accessibility, analyzing 3,453 expressions from Thai-Zlatev Corpus (Zlatev and Yangklang 2001), Aakanee Website (Aakanee, “Thai Recordings”) and Thai Folktale Database (Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, “Folktales”). Grounded in Ariel’s Accessibility Theory (1988, 1990), which asserts that referring expressions are universally arranged on an Accessibility scale but marking systems vary by language, we propose an Accessibility Marking Scale for Thai anaphoric expressions, informed by the factors of Distance, Competition, Saliency and Unity. Some anaphoric expressions showed no significant differences in mean Accessibility, leading them to share ranks. Our newly identified anaphoric expressions align on the scale with those of similar discourse function and pattern. The study also reveals that factors like Saliency and Unity account for the distinctions between the Thai Accessibility Marking Scale and the English Accessibility Marking Scale as proposed by Ariel.

The Production of Subject Anaphoric Expressions in Italian and Mexican Spanish: A Forced-Choice Experimental Study.

We compare the production of anaphoric expressions in Spanish and Italian. In two sentence completion tasks, Spanish and Italian-speaking participants complete sentence fragments where we manipulate the location of the antecedents (in a main or subordinate clause), the gender of the antecedents (similar or different) and the referent of the anaphoric expression (subject or object antecedent). Our results show a weaker subject bias for null pronouns and a weaker object bias for overt pronouns in Spanish compared to Italian. In addition, a thetic interpretation of the initial (subordinate) clause decreases the accessibility of the subject antecedent, leading to an increased use of noun phrases when there is gender-similarity between antecedents. By including gender dissimilar antecedents, we further observe an increase in speakers' production of overt pronouns when reference to an object antecedent is expected.

The male bias can be attenuated in reading: on the resolution of anaphoric expressions following gender-fair forms in French

Despite the increased use of different types of gender-fair forms in French, studies investigating how they are interpreted when presented in a sentence remain few. To fill this gap, we conducted a pre-registered study using a timed sentence evaluation task to examine the possibility of speakers’ establishing an anaphoric relationship between a gendered anaphoric expression (femmes ‘women’ or hommes ‘men’) and non-stereotyped role nouns as antecedents. The antecedents were presented in their masculine form or in one out of three different gender-fair forms (complete double forms: les voisines et voisins ‘the neighbours.FEM and neighbours.MASC’, contracted double forms: les voisin·es ‘the neighbours.MASC·FEM’, or gender-neutral forms: le voisinage ‘the neighbourhood’). In line with previous findings, the masculine form led to a male bias in the participants’ mental representations of gender. All three examined gender-fair forms resolved this bias, but comparisons of the different forms to each other revealed differences between them. The results show that complete double forms lead to equally balanced mental representations of gender while contracted double forms slightly favour representation of women. Finally, gender-neutral forms result in a small male bias, although significantly smaller than the one produced by the masculine form. The results are discussed in relation to the mental models theory and provide new and important insights on how gender-fair forms in French are interpreted. 

KREIRANjE TEKSTUALNE KOHEZIJE PUTEM ANAFORSKIH IZRAZA U ROMANU „OSTAJEM OVDE“ MARKA BALCANA

In order for the narration to succeed, it is necessary to create textual cohesion, i.e. the the- matic continuity of narration. Anaphora is one of the key mechanisms for connecting the parts of a text into a whole. It consists of antecedent and anaphoric expression. The antecedent refers to the extratextual referent while the anaphoric expression refers to the antecedent. In order to create a connection between these two elements, the reader needs to possess the knowledge of the world as well as the knowledge of the text itself. The very essence of the textual cohesion and anaphoric expressions lies in the fact that the reader is increasingly relying on the knowl- edge based on the text, as the narration keeps progressing. Through anaphoric expressions the writer provides the reader with new information that is gradually building on, thus making the reader familiar with the characters and events in the narration. The anaphoric expressions can refer to the antecedent through various expressions, such as synonims, hyponims, hyper- onims, deminutives, but above all the equivalent expressions which are the most numerous in the novel. This kind of anaphora is called indirect anaphora because the anaphoric expression is lexically different from the antecedent, but refrerentially still the same. This lexical differ- ence presents the starting point of our research on anaphoric expressions in the novel Resto qui by Marco Balzano. Through anaphoric expressions Balzano introduces the reader to the context of narration and creates a coherent text using the very expressions through which he provides new information to the reader about the characters and events. Via careful analysis we have concluded that there are three types of anaphoric expressions in this novel: 1) an informative anaphoric expression that provides new information to the reader, 2) an evaluative anaphoric expression through which the protagonists express their opinions, emotions and attitudes towards events around them and 3) anaphoric chains in which Balzano combines the first two anaphoric expressions creating a strong, expressive and deep reflections and perception of both the events and the protagonists of the novel.

Anaphors in Ikwuano Igbo: Binding Theory Approach

This work investigates Anaphors in Ikwuano Igbo. Anaphoric expressions are useful in the meaningful interpretations of NPs in a discourse. This study adopts the Binding Theory (BT) approach of GB syntax in examining anaphoric expressions in Igbo. Data for this work were elicited from native speakers of Ikwuano in Ikwuano area of Abia State, Nigeria. This paper was verified for cross-referencing purposes given the researcher’s native speaking intuition and introspection. This study investigates anaphors and antecedents and also demonstrates the concepts of C-command and binding, among others in Ikwuano Igbo. The work reveals that Ikwuano Igbo has two types of anaphors- the reflexive and the reciprocal anaphors. The study demonstrates that the binding theory investigates the syntactic relationship that can or must hold between a given proform and its antecedent. In this respect, anaphors (reflexive and reciprocal pronouns) behave very differently from personal pronouns. The work demonstrates the concepts of binding, Co-indexation, Co-referentiality, locality constraint and C-constituent command to show dependency between the antecedents and the anaphors in Ikwuano Igbo. This paper also reveals that Ikwuano Igbo has anaphoric expressions that do not mark gender. The Binding Theory shows that the antecedent and the anaphor occur in the same governing category. Also it shows that a pronominal must be free in its governing category and an R-expression must be free everywhere in a sentence according to the regulating principles of the Theory. This paper reveals the descriptive nature of antecedent- anaphor relationship in the study of syntactic structures for grammaticality.

Proper names as anaphoric expressions in short crime stories: Doing more than referring within and across paragraphs

The paper reports the results of a quantitative and qualitative study concerning the pragmatic functions of proper names used anaphorically in a corpus of six British crime stories by three different authors. It evokes previous studies claiming that person references in conversation may do more than referring, and it relies on previous works on marked/overspecified anaphoric expressions in narrative texts. The analysis attempts to pin down the pragmatically-derived meanings resulting from anaphoric name forms occurring within paragraphs, that is, at paragraph starts and in the remaining paragraph sentences, and across paragraphs, that is, in contiguous paragraphs as well as in all the paragraphs of a story. Even though anaphoric name forms generally are still underexplored, they turn out to be the second category of anaphoric expressions being used after third-person pronouns. The results disconfirm that paragraphs preserve continued pronominalization. Various shifts, e.g. of topic, viewpoint, and utterer shifts can occur within paragraphs just as at paragraph starts. Selected passages show in detail which form suggests which shift in which context. Moreover, repetitions of the same name form within paragraphs and throughout stories suggest further implied meanings dealing with the relationships between characters and the authors’ manipulations of person references.

Anaphoric processing deficits in Alzheimer's disease: the role of working memory

Empirical studies have shown that Alzheimer's patients have language-processing difficulties. In particular, they frequently fail to identify the referent of pronouns and other anaphoric expressions. In healthy individuals, the explicit repetition of proper names elicits a processing delay known as the repeated name penalty. However, in Alzheimer's patients, such repetitions help them establish connections between phrases and allow them to process language more easily. The study of anaphoric processing in patients with cognitive deficits shows: (a) the existence of design features of the language faculty independent of the language in question; (b) the interdependence of language and other cognitive processes; (c) the involvement of working memory in the resolution of pronouns; (d) the contribution of psycholinguistics to the improvement of communication between Alzheimer's patients and health care professionals.

Agreeing to bind: the case of Russian

This contribution offers an analysis of the structural constraints on the interpretation of the Russian anaphoric expressions sebja and svoj. It accounts for a number of intricate binding patterns, such as the ‘animacy effect’ in the case of non-local binding and apparent irregularities in subject orientation and complementarity in local and long-distance binding. We show that these patterns can be accounted for in a unified manner by Multiple Agree-based dependencies established separately for person and number features, assuming the presence of a φ-incomplete number-only probe low in the structure. As a result of the valuation procedure the reflexives end up only partially valued and thus remain distinct from pronominals.

ANAFORA I UPOTREBA ČLANA U ITALIJANSKOM JEZIKU

Anaphora represents a complex linguistic phenomenon that enables the interconnection of textual information. It consists of an antecedent and anaphoric expression. The antecedent introduces an extratextual referent that is grammatically accompanied by indefinite article. In some cases the use of definite article is correct but such choices are usually based on pragmatic factors. The anaphoric expression is always introduced by the definite article, because the defi- nite article is the signal that the textual cohesion has taken place through the relation between the elements of the anaphora. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the types of bonding between the anteced- ent and the anaphoric expression. Depending on the prevalent type of bond we singled out four types of anaphora in our corpora based on six Italian novels: direct, indirect, associative anaphora and anaphoric encapsulator. Our research shows that the first two types are characterized by coreference, while the other two are not. This implies that the direct anaphora is based on lexical bonding, whereas the indirect is based on semantic bonding of various lexical substitutes such as equivalent expressions, hyponyms, hyperonyms, synonyms or diminutives. The associative anaphora requires strong logical and associative bond between the antecedent and the anaphoric expres- sion in order for cohesion to happen. The anaphoric encapsulator presents a single word that can summarize a whole segment of the previous text. We have concluded that all four types of anaphora successfully create textual cohesion and the reader is equipped to connect the antecedent to the anaphoric expression, regardless of whether there is a referential identity within the anaphora. The goal of this article is to point out the importance of pragmatic factors that enable this kind of referential recognition. They include the encyclopedia knowledge, the common knowledge, the knowing of the context and the co-text, the discourse universe and the cooperative principle that depends on the reader’s willingness to accept the referential connections within anaphoric elements.

The interpretational preferences of null and overt pronouns in Chinese

We report three reading comprehension experiments investigating the interpretational preferences and processing ofproand overt pronouns in Chinese, a ‘discourse-oriented’pro-drop language (Huang 1984). Our offline rating experiments showed that bothproand overt pronouns were subject-based, but the preference for the subject antecedents was stronger withprothan with overt pronouns. In addition, these different levels of subject biases were confirmed in a self-paced reading experiment; a processing penalty was incurred with object antecedent interpretation regardless of the pronominal type, but the penalty was bigger forprothan for overt pronouns. These experimental results are consistent with Accessibility theory that less specific anaphoric expressions (e.g.pro) were less likely than more specific anaphoric expressions (e.g. overt pronouns) to refer to a less prominent antecedent (e.g. syntactic object).

Referential Chains Reveal Predictive Processes and Form-to-Function Mapping: An Electroencephalographic Study Using Naturalistic Story Stimuli.

In discourse pragmatics, different referential forms are claimed to be indicative of the cognitive status of a referent in the current discourse. Referential expressions thereby possess a double function: They point back to an (existing) referent (form-to-function mapping), and they are used to derive predictions about a referent’s subsequent recurrence in discourse. Existing event-related potential (ERP) research has mainly focused on the form-to-function mapping of referential expression. In the present ERP study, we explore the relationship of form-to-function mapping and prediction derived from the antecedent of referential expressions in naturalistic auditory language comprehension. Specifically, the study investigates the relationship between the form of a referential expression (pronoun vs. noun) and the form of its antecedent (pronoun vs. noun); i.e., it examines the influence of the interplay of predictions derived from an antecedent (forward-looking function) and the form-to-function mapping of an anaphor (backward-looking function) on the ERPs time-locked to anaphoric expressions. The results in the time range of the P300 and N400 allow for a dissociation of these two functions during online language comprehension.

Updating the typology of definiteness: Evidence from bare nouns in Shan

This paper demonstrates that bare nouns in Shan (Tai-Kadai) can express both unique and anaphoric definiteness, a distinction first noted by Schwarz (2009). This pattern of data as well as similar patterns found in Serbian and Kannada motivate adding a category to the typology of definiteness marking described by Jenks (2018) to include languages that allow bare nouns to express anaphoric definiteness. An extended type-shifting analysis offers an account of the availability of bare noun anaphora, as well as the other bare noun interpretations, such as the indefinite, generic, and kind interpretations. Variation in the use of bare nouns versus more marked anaphoric expressions is tied to pragmatic factors such as what anaphoric definite expressions are available in the language, contrast, information structure, and potential ambiguity of nominal expressions. This account proposes that a constrained semantic account of the interpretations of nominal expressions combined with a pragmatic account of their use can model much of the cross-linguistic data on definiteness.

Generalised Crossover

Crossover (CO) is a constraint on anaphoric dependencies, according to which, quantifier scope can feed pronominal anaphora unless the anaphoric expression precedes the quantifier. We demonstrate that effects reminiscent of CO arise with presupposition as well, and propose to generalise CO as follows: Projective content (quantifier scope, presupposition projection, etc.) feeds semantic dependencies (pronominal anaphora, presupposition satisfaction), unless the semantically dependent expression precedes the trigger of the projective content. We call this generalisation, Generalised Crossover (GCO). Although we cannot offer a full explanation for GCO in this paper, we will discuss its implications for recent theories of CO.

The Discourse Functions of Overspecified Anaphoric Expressions in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: Genesis 12-24 as a Test Case

Abstract In Biblical Hebrew, as in other languages, anaphoric reference is often overspecified; that is, an anaphoric noun (lexical anaphora) is used in a place where the inflection of the verb (inflectional anaphora) would be a sufficient indicator as to who is being referred to. The present study investigates the function of overspecified subject referents in Biblical Hebrew narrative discourse. It is found that overspecification can be associated with three main textual phenomena, namely, events of general relevance, subject referent initiative, and various textual discontinuities. The function of indicating subject referent initiative lies behind many of the occurrences of lexical anaphora at the beginning of episodic units, but it may also occur within episodes. The different functions of overspecification and inflectional anaphora arise as a result of the different mental processes triggered by lexical and deictic anaphora, whereby the former evokes general, contextindependent knowledge about the referent and impedes the access to the information contained in the previous clause, whereas the latter makes it immediately available.

Anaphora resolution and word-order across adulthood: Ageing effects on online listening comprehension

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.

The Acquisition of English Anaphoric Expressions by Adult Chinese Speakers.

The present study has investigated the occurrence of the English anaphoric expressions, he/she, in L2 grammars. Adult Chinese learners of English were evaluated on whether they were able to provide a correct semantic interpretation of these pronouns when they appeared in complex sentences (subordinate + matrix) and correlative structures. Results have shown that L2 learners did not encounter any major difficulties in identifying the appropriate antecedents of these pronominal forms and were almost as accurate as English native speakers. This positive acquisition scenario clearly indicates that a correct reference production of English anaphors is attainable despite the visible differences between the two languages. Theoretically, it seems to support some form of Continuity in SLA; it is also consistent with the idea that internal interface phenomena are fully acquirable and are not subject to fossilization (Interface Theory, Sorace in Biling Lang Cogn 7:143-145, 2004; Linguist Approaches Biling 1:1-33, 2011). Furthermore, L2 structures partially present in L1 grammar are attainable without necessarily relying on learners' first language (contra Failed Functional Features Hypothesis, Hawkins and Chan in Second Lang Res 13:187-226, 1997). In fact, contrary to previous L2 studies, no visible L1 transfer effects were observed in the data.

Set focus and anaphoric reference: An ERP study

This article reports the results from an ERP study on the processing of anaphoric reference to quantifying expressions in Swedish (e.g. Many students attended the lecture and that they were present was noted). Negative quantifiers (e.g. few) differ from positive quantifiers (e.g. many), in allowing anaphoric expressions to target either the ref(erence) set (‘students attending the lecture’) or the comp(lement) set (‘students not attending the lecture’), while positive quantifiers only allow Refset continuations. Results from the present study show that negative quantifiers give rise to an enhanced frontal negativity at the anaphoric pronoun in the negative condition, relative to positive quantifiers. At the critical word disambiguating between a Refset and Compset reading, we found P600 effects for the anomalous relative to the non-anomalous conditions. We interpret the frontal negativity found with negative quantifiers as an indication of referential ambiguity interfering in the processing of anaphoric reference.

L1 그리스어 화자의 L2 영어 재귀사 해석 연구

An implication of the shallow structure hypothesis (Clahsen and Felser 2006, 2018) in tandem with that of L1 negative transfer predicts that L2ers are prone to pragmatic cues in reflexive resolution of the target language, especially when their L1 is a discourse-oriented language (Chiou and Huang 2010). This study finds that Greek learners of English do show their sensitivity to pragmatic information in reflexive resolution. Surprisingly, for some Greek L2ers, their sensitivity is strong enough to ignore the c-commanding requirement of reflexive-binding, casting doubt on the traditional categorization of Greek as a structure-oriented language. This study attributes Greek L2ers’ relatively high sensitivity to pragmatic cues to a quite complex lexical entry of Greek anaphors which include o iδ jos, a pragmatically controlled anaphoric expression.

Referential Coherence of Academic Texts: A Corpus-Based Analysis of L2 Research Papers in Management

This paper focuses on referential coherence, which is seen as a crucial attribute of effective academic writing. Findings are reported from a corpus study of Russian students’ research proposals. The learners’ use of anaphoric expressions is compared with a reference corpus, which comprises research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. It was hypothesised that learners use anaphora less frequently than professional writers and face some difficulties when using anaphoric expressions. The results of the analysis partly confirmed the hypothesis and allowed the identification of particular problems connected with the students’ use of anaphoric expressions, which were then classified into several groups. Examples of exercises aimed at dealing with the identified problems are also provided. It is hoped that the reported findings, as well as the author’s suggested reasons for the problems and possible ways of dealing with them, will be useful for EAP practitioners, researchers, and students writing their research papers in English.