Overt Pronouns Research Articles

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.

Same or different? Subject realization in the majority and the heritage language of Polish-German bilingual children

Abstract The paper examines the extent to which bilingual children select lexical noun phrases and null and overt pronouns as referring expressions in their majority language German and their heritage language Polish. Both languages are similar regarding the availability of lexical noun phrases but differ in terms of the distribution of null and overt pronominal forms. Our focus lies on discourse contexts with a subject antecedent in the preceding clause, which require only light processing for both speaker and hearer due to the high accessibility of the intended subject referent. Drawing on experimental data from a picture story retelling task (MAIN) to investigate the distribution of referring expressions in the two languages compared to age-matched monolingual control groups, our results reveal that bilingual children are sensitive to crosslinguistic differences in the syntactic and discourse-pragmatic constraints that regulate the distribution of null and overt subjects in Polish and German, depending on the mode of speech (narrative or dialogic). Furthermore, there are no significant differences between the bilingual and monolingual children, irrespective of language and age group. Thus, our study cannot confirm findings of previous studies concerning the tendency of bilingual children to be either overspecific or underspecific in subject reference production.

Overt Subject Pronoun Use in Switch-Reference Contexts in Child Spanish Developmental Language Disorder: A Discriminant Function Analysis.

Our study analyzes probabilistic constraints on subject expression previously found in adult Spanish in the speech of typically developing (TD) Spanish-speaking children and children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Previous work shows that children with DLD produce fewer overt subjects than typically developing children, and that the latter acquire constraints on subject expression as they age into adolescence. Our study complements these findings and provides further substance to the grammatical profile of children whose morphosyntactic development diverges from that of typically developing children. Data are drawn from unstructured spontaneous production data from a sample of 19 monolingual Mexican, Spanish-speaking children, collected in 2006-2007. This sample includes 19 children diagnosed with DLD and 19 age-matched, typically developing children. We collected all instances of finite verbs that either did or could have occurred with a subject personal pronoun uttered by the child participants and coded them for several factors including tense-mood-aspect, switch reference, and person and number. We find that children with DLD produce fewer overt subject pronouns in switch reference contexts than typically developing controls, with a significant interaction of group and switch reference. Furthermore, a discriminant function analysis shows that overt pronoun use in switch reference contexts can form part of a useful diagnostic discriminant function, with high levels of sensitivity and specificity. Overall, we find important differences between TD Spanish-speaking children and those diagnosed with DLD regarding rates of overt subjects and sensitivity to the probabilistic constraint of switch reference. This finding contributes to our understanding of the morphosyntactic profiles of children with DLD, as well as the utility of factors such as switch reference in the identification of language disorders.

Null and overt pronoun interpretation in L2 Mandarin resultative constructions

Abstract This experimental study examines the acquisition of null and overt pronoun interpretations in Chinese as a second language by native speakers of English. A linguistic phenomenon not present in the native language of the learners is identified: the null element in the embedded subject position of Mandarin resultative constructions can only refer to the main-clause subject, while an overt pronoun in the same position can refer both to the main-clause subject and to another entity in the discourse. Thus the acquisition task includes learning a new functional morpheme, a null element, as well as constraining its interpretation in the resultative construction. We tested 59 L2 learners of Chinese at different proficiency levels and 51 native Mandarin speakers on a Truth Value Judgment Task. The learners showed a pattern of interpretation that was statistically indistinguishable from the native speakers’ in all but one context. We argue that our findings point to largely successful acquisition of the requisite proform interpretations, even though the restrictions on the interpretation of null elements cannot be transferred from the native language.

Anaphoric reference in a German-Polish bilingual child

Abstract The study examines the use of referring expressions in anaphoric contexts in a German-Polish bilingual child between age 2;0 to 4;0. The longitudinal corpus consists of 160 video recordings of spontaneous speech in both languages. There are fundamental differences in the way anaphoric reference is expressed in German and Polish. Speakers of German refer to discourse-given referents either with a definite NP, a personal or a demonstrative pronoun. Speakers of Polish – a pro drop language without articles – mostly use bare nouns or null pronouns. Overt pronouns and demonstrative determiners are restricted to specific information structure conditions. We found an overuse of overt pronouns and demonstrative determiners in Polish in comparison to a monolingual Polish child of the same age and also qualitative differences in the use of the relevant expressions. Despite the fact that the earliest child grammar in both languages rather resembles the Polish target (no articles, no pronouns), the reliable markers of discourse-givenness encountered in the German input are rapidly acquired and overextended to Polish, before the more implicit Polish system is in place.

Processing reflexive pronouns when they don’t announce themselves

In two experiments we investigated the comprehension of pronoun forms in Chamorro, a verb-initial Austronesian language that does not distinguish morphologically between reflexive anaphors and pronominals. In Experiment 1, on object pronouns, we found that comprehenders had a preference for reflexive interpretations despite the fact that the pronoun form was not morphologically marked as reflexive. In Experiment 2, on possessor pronouns, we found that this preference was much weaker. We conclude that when a morphological distinction between reflexive anaphors and pronominals is absent, comprehenders do prefer to assign reflexive interpretations. However, this pressure is defeasible and moderated by morphosyntactic and semantic factors, such as the competition between null and overt pronoun forms and the verb’s argument structure.

How Does Topicality Affect the Choice of Referential Form? Evidence From Mandarin.

Many models of reference production suggest that speakers tend to use a reduced referential form, such as a pronoun, to signal the topicality of a particular referent, that is, the Topichood Hypothesis. However, little is known about the precise nature of the mapping between topichood and referential form and the mechanisms by which topichood affects referential form. The current study aims to address these issues by investigating how topicality influences different kinds of reduced expressions, namely, null and overt pronouns in Mandarin. We manipulated topicality using a left-dislocation structure in Experiment 1. We found that topicality increased the use of null pronouns, but not overt pronouns. This suggests that topicality may increase only the most reduced expression available in a given language. Experiment 2 examined whether the topicality effect was related to predictability. We found that participants used more null pronouns for less predictable referents. We suggest that the topicality effect could be better explained by an accessibility mechanism.

Subject pronouns in Spanish-English code-switching

Abstract While the Minimalist Program argues that Spanish-English code-switches between pronominal subjects and finite verbs are ungrammatical (Van Gelderen & MacSwan, 2008), the MLF/4-M models (Myers-Scotton, 1993; Myers-Scotton & Jake, 2000) predict their grammaticality when overt pronouns are obligatory in both languages (e.g., contrastive focus). In this study, we test the contrary predictions of these models using a code-switching production task. Thirty-eight Spanish-English bilinguals (31 female; Age: 18–23 years) completed a concurrent memory-loaded repetition task where visual primes forced broad or contrastive focus interpretations. We also examined the effects of switch direction, code-switching frequency, and language dominance. The results showed that code-switches between a Spanish overt pronoun and an English inflected verb were more accurately produced in the contrastive focus than the broad focus condition, lending support for the MLF/4-M models. No effect of code-switching frequency was found. Finally, higher Spanish dominance resulted in more accurate production of these code-switches.

The role of grammatical role and thematic role predictability in reference form production in Mandarin Chinese.

Evidence suggests that English speakers use pronouns when referring to the grammatical subject and predictable thematic role. We tested how grammatical role and thematic role predictability affect different types of referential forms, namely, overt pronouns and null pronouns in Mandarin Chinese. We found that both overt and null pronouns were sensitive to grammatical role. However, we did not find any evidence that overt and null pronouns were sensitive to thematic role predictability. Although null pronouns were influenced by grammatical role, the rate of null pronouns for subject reference was very low compared to that of overt pronouns. Given the frequent occurrence of null pronouns in Mandarin, our results suggest that the use of null pronouns may not be explained by a simple grammatical role mechanism.

(In)felicitous use of subjects in Greek and Spanish in monolingual and contact settings

This paper focuses on subject distribution in Greek and Chilean Spanish, both null subject languages, as evidenced in the oral production of monolingual and bilingual speakers. Narratives elicited from 40 monolinguals and 76 bilinguals of different types, namely, first- generation immigrants, heritage speakers, and L2 speakers, were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively to explore potential differences in expressing subject reference between the groups in monolingual and contact settings. The qualitative analysis of contexts of topic continuity and topic shift showed no overextension of the scope of the overt subject pronoun expected to be found in the bilingual performance according to the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace 2011; 2012) and previous research. The findings also show that the redundancy of lexical subjects observed in topic continuity contexts mostly involved felicitous (pragmatically appropriate) constructions. Moreover, while null subjects in topic shift were found to be mostly felicitous in both monolinguals and bilinguals, cases of ambiguity were observed in the bilingual performance in this discourse context.

Pronominal anaphora resolution in Polish: Investigating online sentence interpretation using eye-tracking.

The mechanism of anaphora resolution is subject to large cross-linguistic differences. The most likely reason for this is the different sensitivity of pronouns to the range of factors that determine their reference. In the current study, we explored the mechanism of anaphora resolution in Polish. First, we explored preferences in the interpretation of null and overt pronouns in ambiguous sentences. More specifically, we investigated whether Polish speakers prefer to relate overt pronouns to subject or object antecedents. Subsequently, we tested the consequences of violating this bias when tracing the online sentence-interpretation process using eye-tracking. Our results show that Polish speakers have a strong preference for interpreting null pronouns as referring to subject antecedents and interpreting overt pronouns as referring to object antecedents. However, in online sentence interpretation, only overt pronouns showed sensitivity to a violation of the speaker's preference for a pronoun-antecedent match. This suggests that null pronoun resolution is more flexible than overt pronoun resolution. Our results indicate that it is much easier for Polish speakers to shift the reference of a null pronoun than an overt one whenever a pronoun is forced to refer to a less-preferred antecedent. These results are supported by naturalness ratings, which showed that null pronouns are considered equally natural regardless of their reference, while overt pronouns referring to subject antecedents are rated as considerably less natural than those referring to object antecedents. To explain this effect, we propose that the interpretation of null and overt pronouns is sensitive to different factors which determine their reference.

The Effects of Semantic Role Predictability on the Production of Overt Pronouns in Spanish

In order to refer in any language, speakers must choose between explicit forms of expression, such as names or descriptions, or more ambiguous forms like pronouns. Current models suggest that reference form is driven by subjecthood, where speakers in English choose pronouns for the subject, and speakers of null pronoun languages like Spanish or Italian use null pronouns. We test this generalization by examining the effect of a different factor, thematic role predictability, on reference production in Spanish. In stories about transfer events (e.g., Ana gave a ball to Liz), speakers prefer to use pronouns more for reference to goals (Liz) than sources (Rosa and Arnold, Journal of Memory and Language 94:43-60, 2017). However, this has not been examined for null pronoun languages. In two experiments, we demonstrate that Spanish speakers are also sensitive to thematic role, but it primarily affects the rate of overt pronouns (ella, el) rather than null pronouns. These results highlight the need to include semantic constraints in models of reference production for null-pronoun languages.

Language Variation in Mandarin as a Heritage Language: Subject Personal Pronouns

Abstract Because of limited language input, different dominant languages, and learners’ differing backgrounds, the acquisition of heritage languages is distinguished from the acquisition of L1 and L2. Few studies of Chinese as a Heritage Language (CHL) have explored whether students can acquire native-like sociolinguistic competence and language-specific variables with educational input. Based on a sociolinguistic variationist perspective, this study investigates the acquisition of variation between null and overt subject personal pronouns (SPP s) by heritage learners in an undergraduate-level Mandarin program. A total of 11,970 tokens were collected through classroom observation, sociolinguistic interviews, and narratives. Measuring mixed-effects logistic regression with Rbrul (Johnson, 2009), results show that the overall usage pattern of SPP s by CHL students largely resembled that in the input provided by the language program. Results also demonstrate that linguistic constraints including coreference, person and number, and verb type, and social factors such as discourse context, first languages, course level, and age of arrival had a significant effect on SPP expression by CHL learners. Implications for CHL development and variationist studies in heritage languages are discussed.

Korean Learners’ Acquisition and Use of Variable First-Person Subject Forms in Spanish

Within the scope of research that lies at the intersection of sociolinguistics and second language acquisition, there is a growing body of empirical work on learners’ acquisition of variable subject expression in Spanish. This research has been instrumental for demonstrating that second language (L2) learners acquire linguistic and social constraints on subject form use. The present study extends research on variable Spanish subject expression to an understudied learner population: native Korean-speaking learners. Interview data were examined for the range and frequency of first-person subject forms produced by Korean-speaking learners at four instructional levels as well as linguistic and individual (extralinguistic) predictors of subject use. Results showed that learners at each level produced primarily null subjects, and verb number, verb-form regularity, verb semantics, and use of Spanish outside of class significantly predicted use of an overt personal pronoun over null subjects.

First person singular subject pronoun expression in Equatoguinean Spanish

The present study examines the linguistic and social factors that affect first person singular subject pronoun expression (SPE) in Equatoguinean Spanish. It also questions whether first person singular SPE in Equatoguinean Spanish supports or contradicts the tenets of the interface hypothesis. The data were analysed with the mixed effect software Rbrul. It consisted of transcriptions of audio recordings of 30 Equatoguinean participants in Malabo. The overt pronoun rate found in these data is 25.1%. The linguistic factors that also influence first person singular SPE are ambiguity, verb class and reference, whereas the social factors are education and speaker. Due to the low ranking of reference, the prediction of the interface hypothesis is supported in this study.

Differences between Korean Null Arguments and Korean Overt Pronouns

The ultimate goal is this paper is to provide five pieces of evidence that Korean null pronouns are not semantically and syntactically equivalent to Korean overt pronouns. First, when Korean overt pronouns and Korean null pronouns have the only NP as their antecedent, the truth condition becomes different. Second, when Korean overt pronouns and Korean null pronouns take the even NP as their antecedent, the truth condition becomes different. Third, the Korean overt pronoun ku ‘he’ is associated with its antecedent by coreference, whereas Korean null pronouns are associated with their antecedent by binding. Fourth, Korean overt pronouns yield a strict reading, whereas Korean null arguments induces the strict/sloppy ambiguity. This in turn suggests that Korean null pronouns yield looser interpretations than Korean overt pronouns. Additionally, it is worth noting that Korean overt pronouns induce a definite reading, whereas Korean null pronouns yield indefinite and definite readings. Fifth, Korean overt pronouns and Korean null pronouns are not alike in that the former is sensitive to phi-features (gender, number, and person), whereas the latter is not. This paper argues that Korean null pronouns are not syntactically the equivalent of Korean overt pronouns.

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).

On the impact of clause order on pronoun resolution: evidence from Spanish

Abstract In research on intra-sentential pronominal anaphora resolution in null subject languages, it has been argued that null pronouns tend to be biased towards subject antecedents, whereas overt pronouns tend to prefer object antecedents, as predicted by Carminati’s ‘Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis’. However, these studies have mainly focused on only one of the two possible clause orders (main-subordinate or subordinate-main), which have not been overtly contrasted. This paper investigates the effects of clause order on the interpretation of third-person subject pronouns in globally ambiguous intra-sentential contexts by 49 native speakers of Spanish. The results of an acceptability judgment task explicitly comparing both clause orders indicate that relative clause order is a key factor affecting the interpretation of pronouns: while a preference of overt pronouns for object antecedents holds across clause orders, null pronouns show a bias towards subject antecedents only in subordinate-main sequences. These findings refine the Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis predictions by restricting them to subordinate-main complex sentences.

Representations underlying pronoun choice in Italian and English.

Research has shown that speakers use fewer pronouns when the referential candidates are more similar and hence compete more strongly. Here we examined the locus of such an effect, investigating (1) whether pronoun use is affected by the referents’ competition at a non-linguistic level only (non-linguistic competition account) or whether it is also affected by competition arising from the antecedents’ similarities (linguistic competition account) and (2) the extent to which this depends on the type of pronoun. Speakers used Italian null pronouns and English pronouns less often (relative to full nouns) when the referential candidates compete more strongly situationally, while the antecedents’ semantic, grammatical or phonological similarity did not affect the rates of either pronouns, providing support for the non-linguistic competition account. However, unlike English pronouns, Italian null pronouns were unaffected by gender congruence between human referents, running counter to the gender effect for the use of non-gendered overt pronouns reported earlier. Hence, while both null and overt pronouns are sensitive to non-linguistic competition, what similarity affects non-linguistic competition partly depends on the type of pronouns.

Perspectival factors and pro-drop: A corpus study of speaker/addressee pronouns with creer ‘think/ believe’ and saber ‘know’ in spoken Spanish

This paper examines overt and covert speaker/addressee pronouns with the cognitive verbs creer ‘think/believe’ and saber ‘know’ in a corpus of spoken peninsular Spanish – the Madrid and Alcalá samples of PRESEEA (2014– ) – with a focus on 1st person singular (yo) creo que ‘(I) think that’. Departing from the observation made in the literature that overt pronouns are highly frequent with creer and that topic shift cannot account for all of them, it will be argued that perspectival factors related to evidentiality/epistemicity and subjectivity influence overt pronoun realization. A corpus study was conducted to investigate whether (i) [person] and [polarity] and (ii) the type of complement affect overt pronoun realization with the cognitive verbs creer and saber. The results indicate that the type of belief expressed in the embedded clause should be taken into account, as well as person and polarity. The ultimate trigger for phonetic realization of speaker/addressee pronouns will be argued to be the notion of contrast: cognitive verbs whose embedded complement encodes evaluations and non-visual, abstract information have high frequencies of overt pronoun realization because these contexts favor the evoking of alternative perspective holders. Overt pronouns will be analyzed as the result of a [+contrast] feature which is assigned to the specifier of a functional category encoding perspective in the split IP.