Picture Noun Research Articles

Graded complementarity in the resolution of pronouns and reflexives

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of how pronoun and reflexive resolution preferences in English vary across different syntactic environments. Five structures were tested: coarguments, picture noun phrases, prepositional phrases, coordination, and comparatives. Results show that reflexives display a general preference for structurally local antecedents, but the strength of the preference varies significantly by environment; pronouns display a similarly variable, but stronger preference for nonlocal antecedents. Our findings suggest that complementarity between pronouns and reflexives may be a gradient phenomenon, with the robust complementarity observed in coargument anaphora occupying the endpoint of a graded continuum.

The whole picture: Disentangling locality, logophoricity and subjecthood in English picture noun anaphora

This article provides a solution to the long-standing puzzle of English anaphors within so-called picture noun phrases, which superficially exhibit an exceptional binding behavior. In particular, picture noun anaphors seem, under certain conditions, to escape the locality conditions imposed by Condition A of Binding Theory. Previous proposals attribute such apparently exceptional behavior to various sources: the classical Binding Theory appeals to the possible presence of covert agents within NPs; predicate-based theories introduce the possibility of exemption from Condition A; others capitalize on possible homophony with (logophoric) pronouns. While all of these proposals provide valuable insight into some aspect of the puzzle, we show that they all fail to capture the full empirical picture. Based on a detailed examination of their behavior in various syntactic and interpretive conditions, we instead propose that English picture noun anaphors, like any other anaphor, systematically obey Condition A. Their apparent exemption from it in some cases derives from the possible implicitness of some binders, in particular, logophoric pronouns or nominal subjects. Furthermore, the availability of such covert binders is crucially affected by a binding-independent competition principle between weaker and stronger forms. Thus, the apparently irregular behavior of English picture noun anaphors results from the interaction between several factors (syntactic representation of logophoricity, syntactic projection of subjects in nouns, pronominal competition), which is responsible for the illusion that Condition A does not apply systematically. By disentangling these factors, we propose a solution that integrates previous insights without compromising on empirical adequacy or analytical parsimony.

REFLEXIVITY, ROLE CONFLICTS, AND THE MEANING OF ENGLISH SELF PRONOUNS

This study offers an innovative, sign-based analysis of English self pronouns (myself, yourself, herself, etc.). While rejecting the traditional characterization of these forms as reflexive pronouns, the study borrows from the tradition by analyzing these forms as a kind of emphatic pronoun. The forms’ distribution can be explained by positing that they are semantic signals deployed by speakers to meet communicative goals. Speakers choose between self and simple pronouns when the additional meaning of self forms, INSISTENCE ON AN ENTITY(S), will steer hearers in particular interpretive directions. This approach has led to the discovery that reflexive uses of self pronouns are an instantiation of the general tendency to use these forms for unexpected messages, including those in which a single referent is playing more than one role at one time. The presence of such a role conflict accounts not only for reflexive uses, but also for the appearance of self pronouns in picture noun phrases, logophoric contexts, and other previously unexplained exceptions to the structural reflexivity account.

Pronouns Are as Sensitive to Structural Constraints as Reflexives in Early Processing: Evidence From Visual World Paradigm Eye-Tracking.

A number of studies in the extant literature report findings that suggest asymmetry in the way reflexive and pronoun anaphors are interpreted in the early stages of processing: that pronouns are less sensitive to structural constraints, as formulated by Binding Theory, than reflexives, in the initial antecedent retrieval process. However, in previous visual world paradigm eye-tracking studies, these conclusions were based on sentences that placed the critical anaphors within picture noun phrases or prepositional phrases, which have independently been shown not to neatly conform to the Binding Theory principles. We present results from a visual world paradigm eye-tracking experiment that show that when critical anaphors are placed in the indirect object position immediately following a verb as a recipient argument, pronoun and reflexive processing are equally sensitive to structural constraints.

Coargumenthood and the processing of pronouns

ABSTRACT We report three eye-movement experiments and an offline task investigating structural constraints on pronoun resolution in different contexts. This included “coargument” contexts in which a pronoun was the direct object of a verb (“The surgeon remembered that Jonathan had noticed him”), so-called picture noun phrases (“The surgeon remembered that Jonathan had a picture of him”) and picture noun phrases with a possessor (“The surgeon remembered about Jonathan’s picture of him”). In each eye-movement experiment, we observed longer reading times when the nonlocal antecedent (“the surgeon”) mismatched in stereotypical gender with the pronoun, but little evidence of the gender of the local antecedent (“Jonathan”) influencing reading times. The offline task suggested readers occasionally interpret pronouns as referring to local antecedents, especially in non-coargument contexts. These results suggest that structural constraints constitute more highly weighted cues to antecedent retrieval than gender congruency during the initial stages of memory retrieval during pronoun resolution.

P103 Functional connectivity changes after bilateral tDCS over the frontal region: Preliminary data from aphasia

Introduction Several studies have already shown that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an useful tool to enhance recovery in aphasia. However, no reports to date have investigated functional connectivity changes on cortical activity due to tDCS language treatment. Objectives The present study explored whether bilateral tDCS over the frontal regions would improve language performance in a group of aphasic patients. We also wanted to assess the impact of dual tDCS language treatment on functional connectivity reorganization through rs-fMRI. Materials & methods Nine aphasic persons with articulatory disorders underwent an intensive language therapy in two different conditions: bilateral anodic stimulation over the left Broca’s area and cathodic contralesional stimulation over the right homologue of Broca’s area and a sham condition. The language treatment lasted three weeks (Monday to Friday – fifteen daily sessions). In all patients, language measures were collected before (T0) and at the end of treatment (T15). Before and after each treatment condition (real vs.sham), each subject underwent a resting state fMRI (rsfMRI). Results Results showed that, after real stimulation, patients exhibited the greatest recovery not only in terms of better accuracy in articulating the treated stimuli but also for untreated items on different tasks of the language test (picture description, noun and verb naming, word repetition, word reading). Moreover, while after the sham condition connectivity changes were confined into the right brain hemisphere, bilateral stimulation yielded to stronger functional connectivity increase in the left hemisphere. Conclusion In conclusion, our data provide converging evidence from behavioural and functional imaging data that bilateral tDCS determines functional connectivity changes into the lesioned hemisphere enhancing language recovery process in stroke patients.

The on-line processing of binding principles in second language acquisition: Evidence from eye tracking

ABSTRACTThis study examined how adult L2 learners make use of grammatical and extragrammatical information to interpret reflexives and pronouns. Forty adult English native speakers and 32 intermediate–advanced Korean L2 learners participated in a visual world paradigm eye-tracking experiment. We investigated the interpretation of reflexives (himself) and pronouns (him) in contexts where there is a potential coargument antecedent and in the context of picture noun phrases (a picture of him/himself), where the distribution of reflexives and pronouns can overlap. The results indicated that the learners interpreted reflexives in a nativelike fashion in both contexts, whereas they interpreted pronouns differently from native speakers, even when learners had advanced English proficiency. Adopting the binding theory as developed in the reflexivity/primitives of binding framework (Reinhart & Reuland, 1993; Reuland, 2001, 2011), we interpret these results to mean that while adult L2 learners are able to apply syntactic binding principles to assign an interpretation to anaphoric expressions, they have difficulty in integrating syntactic information with contextual and discourse information.

Coargumenthood and the processing of reflexives

We report three eye-movement experiments and an antecedent choice task investigating the interpretation of reflexives in different syntactic contexts. This included contexts in which the reflexive and a local antecedent were coarguments of the same verbal predicate (John heard that the soldier had injured himself), and also so-called picture noun phrases, either with a possessor (John heard about the soldier’s picture of himself) or without (John heard that the soldier had a picture of himself). While results from the antecedent choice task indicated that comprehenders would choose a nonlocal antecedent (‘John’ above) for reflexives in either type of picture noun phrase, the eye-movement experiments suggested that participants preferred to initially interpret the reflexive in each context as referring to the local antecedent (‘the soldier’), as indexed by longer reading times when it mismatched in gender with the reflexive. We also observed a difference in the time-course of this effect. While it was observed during first-pass processing at the reflexive for coargument reflexives and those in picture noun phrases with a possessor, it was comparatively delayed for reflexives in possessorless picture noun phrases. These results suggest that locality constraints are more strongly weighted cues to retrieval than gender agreement for both coargument reflexives and those inside picture noun phrases. We interpret the observed time-course differences as indexing the relative ease of accessing the local antecedent in different syntactic contexts.

Before the N400: Effects of lexical–semantic violations in visual cortex

There exists an increasing body of research demonstrating that language processing is aided by context-based predictions. Recent findings suggest that the brain generates estimates about the likely physical appearance of upcoming words based on syntactic predictions: words that do not physically look like the expected syntactic category show increased amplitudes in the visual M100 component, the first salient MEG response to visual stimulation. This research asks whether violations of predictions based on lexical–semantic information might similarly generate early visual effects. In a picture–noun matching task, we found early visual effects for words that did not accurately describe the preceding pictures. These results demonstrate that, just like syntactic predictions, lexical–semantic predictions can affect early visual processing around ∼100 ms, suggesting that the M100 response is not exclusively tuned to recognizing visual features relevant to syntactic category analysis. Rather, the brain might generate predictions about upcoming visual input whenever it can. However, visual effects of lexical–semantic violations only occurred when a single lexical item could be predicted. We argue that this may be due to the fact that in natural language processing, there is typically no straightforward mapping between lexical–semantic fields (e.g., flowers) and visual or auditory forms (e.g., tulip, rose, magnolia). For syntactic categories, in contrast, certain form features do reliably correlate with category membership. This difference may, in part, explain why certain syntactic effects typically occur much earlier than lexical–semantic effects.

Structural and semantic constraints on the resolution of pronouns and reflexives

We present four experiments on the interpretation of pronouns and reflexives in picture noun phrases with and without possessors (e.g. Andrew’s picture of him/himself, the picture of him/himself). The experiments (two off-line studies and two visual-world eye-tracking experiments) investigate how syntactic and semantic factors guide the interpretation of pronouns and reflexives and how different kinds of information are integrated during real-time reference resolution. The results show that the interpretation of pronouns and reflexives in picture NP constructions is sensitive not only to purely structural information, as is commonly assumed in syntactically-oriented theories of anaphor resolution, but also to semantic information (see Kuno, S. (1987). Functional syntax: Anaphora, discourse and empathy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Tenny, C. (2003). Short distance pronouns in representational noun phrases and a grammar of sentience. Ms.). Moreover, the results show that pronouns and reflexives differ in the degree of sensitivity they exhibit to different kinds of information. This finding indicates that the form-specific multiple-constraints approach (see Brown-Schmidt, S., Byron, D. K., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2005). Beyond salience: Interpretation of personal and demonstrative pronouns. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 292–313; Kaiser, E. (2003). The quest for a referent: A crosslinguistic look at reference resolution. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Kaiser, E. (2005). When salience is not enough: Pronouns, demonstratives and the quest for an antecedent. In: Laury, R. (Ed.), Minimal reference in Finnic: The use and interpretation of pronouns and zero in Finnish and Estonian discourse (pp. 135–162). Helsinki, Finland: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura; Kaiser, E., & Trueswell, J. (2008). Interpreting pronouns and demonstratives in Finnish: Evidence for a form-specific approach to reference resolution. Language and Cognitive Processes, 23(5), 709–748), which states that referential forms can exhibit asymmetrical sensitivities to the different constraints guiding reference resolution, also applies in the within-sentence domain.

Processing Reflexives and Pronouns in Picture Noun Phrase

Binding theory (e.g., Chomsky, 1981) has played a central role in both syntactic theory and models of language processing. Its constraints are designed to predict that the referential domains of pronouns and reflexives are nonoverlapping, that is, are complementary; these constraints are also thought to play a role in online reference resolution. The predictions of binding theory and its role in sentence processing were tested in four experiments that monitored participants' eye movements as they followed spoken instructions to have a doll touch a picture belonging to another doll. The instructions used pronouns and reflexives embedded in picture noun phrases (PNPs) containing possessor phrases (e.g., Pick up Ken. Have Ken touch Harry's picture of himself). Although the interpretations assigned to pronouns were generally consistent with binding theory, reflexives were frequently assigned interpretations that violated binding theory. In addition, the timing and pattern of eye movements were inconsistent with models of language processing that assume that binding theory acts as an early filter to restrict the referential domain. The interpretations assigned to reflexives in PNPs with possessors suggest that they are binding-theory-exempt logophors, a conclusion that unifies the treatment of reflexives in PNPs.

Binding in picture noun phrases: Implications for Binding Theory

This paper investigates the binding of pronouns and reflexives in picture noun phrases, and focuses on data showing that reflexives and pronouns are not in complementary distribution in picture NPs with possessors. In particular, we discuss data showing that whereas reflexives can take either the possessor or the subject of the sentence as antecedent, pronouns are restricted to an antecedent other than the possessor phrase. We suggest that this asymmetry can be straightforwardly explained if we assume that (1) the possessor of a picture NP is not part of the head noun's argument structure and (2) Binding Theory is stated over dependents structure, the representation encompassing both a head's argument structure and other phrases dependent on it in various ways. If the possessor of a picture NP (PNP) is not part of the head's argument structure, it follows that reflexives in PNPs with possessors will be exempt from Binding Theory, which paves the way for an analysis of the reflexive data. Furthermore, we also show that if BT is regarded as defined over dependents structure, it follows that a pronoun in a picture NP with a possessor must be disjoint from that possessor phrase.

THE SEMANTIC UNITY OF REFLEXIVE, EMPHATIC, AND OTHER-SELFPRONOUNS

In contrast to studies that have focused on the syntactic properties of English -self pronouns (myself, yourself, etc.), this paper investigates the semantic and pragmatic contributions these forms make in different structural contexts, including not only appositive uses, but also reflexives and a wide variety of so-called exceptional uses, such as logophoric expressions and picture noun phrases. An extensive examination of data from a collection of spoken and written texts reveals that -selfpronouns in different structural environments nevertheless exhibit the same semantic and pragmatic characteristics. The structurally diverse assemblage of reflexives, emphatics, and a list of other exceptions are shown to have semantic unity, since the same message effects are seen in all of these environments, including argument and appositive, reflexive and emphatic, as well as what are traditionally described as discourse-based uses.

Assignment of reference to reflexives and pronouns in picture noun phrases: evidence from eye movements

Most structural Binding Theories predict a complementary distribution between reflexives and pronouns in picture noun phrases containing possessors (e.g. “Ken's picture of himself/him”). In two head-mounted eye-tracking experiments, listeners frequently violated Binding Theory predictions for reflexives, often interpreting the reflexives as taking an antecedent outside of the binding domain, and violating complementarity assumptions. Moreover, the pattern and timing of the eye movements showed Binding Theory violations for reflexives during the earliest moments of reference resolution. The results demonstrate that either binding constraints must be reformulated to decouple pronouns and reflexives or all reflexives in picture noun phrases must be treated as logophors, and thus exempt from structural Binding Theory.

Reflexive pronouns with split antecedents

It has been firmly held for the past number of decades (and, we would argue, without proper justification) that anaphors cannot take split antecedents. This paper, which is a semantic investigation of the problem of split antecedency, endeavors to make the following points: (1) that the negative connection between anaphors and split antecedents is not necessarily an absolute truth which can be used as a syntactic norm; (2) that the answer to the apparent tendency lies in a very simple semantic constraint on the use of simple sentences in describing events; and (3) that the distinctive and mysterious behavior of picture noun reflexives, which show strong affinity for this type of referential dependency, can be accounted for straightforwardly by applying the semantic constraint of event description.