Addressees' needs influence speakers' early syntactic choices

A current debate in psycholinguistics concerns how speakers take addressees' knowledge or needs into account during the packaging of utterances. In retelling stories, speakers are more likely to mention atypical instruments than easily inferrable, typical instruments; in a seminal study, Brown and Dell (1987) suggested that this is not an adjustment to addressees but is simply easiest for speakers. They concluded that manipulating addressees' knowledge did not affect speakers' mention of instruments. However, their addressees were confederates who heard the same stories repeatedly. We had speakers retell stories to naive addressees who either saw or did not see a picture illustrating the main action and instrument. When addressees lacked pictures, speakers were more likely to mention atypical instruments, to mention them early (within the same clause as the action verb), and to mark atypical instruments as indefinite. This suggests that with visual copresence, speakers can take addressees' knowledge into account in early syntactic choices.