Comprehending pronouns: a role for word-specific gender stereotype information

The research investigated how word-specific gender stereotype information can be used during language comprehension. In a rating study, the gender stereotypes for 405 noun and noun compounds were assessed. From these norms, 32 words strongly stereotyped to refer mostly to males and 32 words strongly stereotyped to refer mostly to females were selected and used in a reading experiment. Comprehenders read pairs of sentences. The subject of the first sentence was a gender stereotyped word (e.g., executive or secretary). The subject of the second sentence was either the pronoun he or she. Reading time was significantly longer when gender of the pronoun mismatched the gender stereotype of the antecedent than when the genders of pronoun and antecedent matched. This gender mismatch effect occurred on the two regions immediately following the region containing the pronoun. The results indicated that word-specific gender stereotypes can influence coreference resolution of pronouns.     

The use of visual context during the production of referring expressions

Most theories of reference assume that a referent's saliency in the linguistic context determines the choice of referring expression. However, it is less clear whether cognitive factors relating to the nonlinguistic context also have an effect. We investigated whether visual context influences the choice of a pronoun over a repeated noun phrase when speakers refer back to a referent in a preceding sentence. In Experiment 1, linguistic mention as well as visual presence of a competitor with the same gender as the referent resulted in fewer pronouns for the referent, suggesting that both linguistic and visual context determined the choice of referring expression. Experiment 2 showed that even when the competitor had a different gender from the referent, its visual presence reduced pronoun use, indicating that visual context plays a role even if the use of a pronoun is unambiguous. Thus, both linguistic and nonlinguistic information affect the choice of referring expression.     

American English Usage Frequencies for Noun Phrase and Tensed Sentence Complement-Taking Verbs

The present research documents the American English usage frequencies for 136 verbs that occur with noun phrase and tensed sentence complements (e.g., accepted, noun phrase complement: The student knew the answer yesterday, tensed sentence complement: The student knew the answer was correct). This class of verbs has been the focus of numerous empirical studies investigating how syntactic ambiguity is resolved during language comprehension (Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; Garnsey, Pearlmutter, Myers, & Lotocky, 1997; Holmes, Stowe, & Cupples, 1989; Kennedy, Murray, Jennings, & Reid, 1989; Kennison, 1995; Rayner & Frazier, 1987; Trueswell, Tanenhaus, & Kello, 1993). The frequencies for noun phrase complements, tensed sentence complements, prepositional phrase complements, infinitival complements, and other usages are provided, as well as the frequencies with which specific verbs occur with the overt complementizer that in tensed sentence complements.     

Children's command of quantification

In this article we present data from two sets of experiments designed to investigate how children and adult speakers of English and Kannada (Dravidian) interpret scopally ambiguous sentences containing numerally quantified noun phrases and negation (e.g. Donald didn't find two guys). We use this kind of sentence as a way to find evidence in children's linguistic representations for the hierarchical structure and the abstract relations defined over these structures (in particular, the relation of c-command) that linguists take to be at the core of grammatical knowledge. Specifically, we uncover the existence of systematic differences in the way that children and adult speakers resolve these ambiguities, independent of the language they speak. That is, while adults can easily access either scope interpretation, 4-year-old children display a strong preference for the scopal interpretation of the quantified elements which corresponds to their surface syntactic position. Crucially, however, we show that children's interpretations are constrained by the surface hierarchical relations (i.e. the c-command relations) between these elements and not by their linear order. Children's non-adult interpretations are therefore informative about the nature of the syntactic representations they entertain and the rules they use to determine the meaning of a sentence from its structure.     

主语表征预报思维指向状态的马尔科夫链模型

个体的语言表征是一种随机现象, 在连续句子构成的语言表征中, 句子主语表征现象具有马氏性。采用马尔科夫链模型建构句子主语表征的状态转移概率矩阵, 发现主语表征的名词(n)/代词(r)是一个正则链。主语表征变化规律反映思维指向的变化规律, 个体根据对环境的适应需要, 通过第一个句子的主语表征反映出客观思维或主观思维指向的随机性, 通过N个句子则反映出个体既关注外界又关注自我的思维指向稳定性的特征。外显的语言表征是观察内隐的心理变化的客观线索, 运用数学模型的方法, 通过语言表征的规律可以对心理活动的可能变化做出预报。     

Conceptual Locations and Pronominal Reference in American Sign Language

We report the results of an experiment investigating the ramifications of using space to express coreference in American Sign Language (ASL). Nominals in ASL can be associated with locations in signing space, and pronouns are directed toward those locations to convey coreference. A probe recognition technique was used to investigate the case of "locus doubling" in which a single referent is associated with two distinct spatial locations. The experiment explored whether an ASL pronoun activates both its antecedent referent and the location associated with that referent. An introductory discourse associated a referent (e.g, MOTHER) with two distinct locations (eg., STOREleft, KITCHENright), and a continuation sentence followed that either contained a pronoun referring to the referent in one location or contained no anaphora (the control sentence). Twenty-four deaf participants made lexical decisions to probe signs presented during the continuation sentences. The probe signs were either the referent of the pronoun, the referent-location determined by the pronoun, or the most recently mentioned location (not referenced by the pronoun). The results indicated that response times to referent nouns were faster in the pronoun than in the no-pronoun control condition and that response times to the location signs did not differ across conditions. Thus, the spatial nature of coreference in ASL does not alter the processing mechanism underlying the on-line interpretation of pronouns. Pronouns activate only referent nouns, not spatial location nouns associated with the referent.     

Differences Between the Morphology of Gender and Number: Evidence from Establishing Coreferences

This work investigates the processing of gender and number features in the selection of a pronoun antecedent in Italian. In Italian there are instances of nouns in which gender and number are treated morphologically on a par, i.e., overtly and regularly marked by a suffix. In these cases, are the two features also treated similarly in processing? The experiments used sentences with two possible antecedents (differing in gender or number) in the main clause and a pronoun in the complement clause. The sentences were visually presented, with a unimodal lexical decision task at the end of the sentence. The results showed a selective reactivation of the antecedent matching the pronoun in either gender or number. The results are discussed in relation to previous Italian experiments, which found that in sentence internal position there is selective reactivation of only the number-matching antecedent. They are taken to support a model of the coreference processor in which gender and number features are used at different processing stages, due to their different syntactic representation.     

When grammar wins over sense: Children's judgments of extraposed relatives

A sentence judgment task was used to test 4-to 5-year-old children's knowledge of coreference possibilities for extraposed relatives. The overall pattern of children's performance in the first experiment reported here is similar to that of a control group of adult subjects and is consistent with knowledge of the linguistic constraints that restrict extraposition in the adult grammar. Performance on a follow-up experiment argues against a nongrammatical explanation of the results of the first experiment. Children's performance on the judgment task shows, that they are capable of abstracting away from the pragmatics of the immediate situation in making judgments and can be construed as evidence that children construct mental representations for the sentences they judge in which an NP over NP S structure is constructed for relative clauses at a level distinct from the surface structure string. The comparative lack of response patterns found in some previous work is discussed in the context of models of sentence processing.     

Linguistic context and children's recall in a probe word task

A probe word task was used to test first-, third-, and fifth-grade children's recall of words in varying linguistic contexts. Consistent with expectations based on short-term memory considerations, words that occurred in meaningful sentence contexts were better recalled than those appearing in strings of unrelated words, and words that appeared toward the end of the sentence or string were better recalled than those occurring toward the beginning. At the same time, the effects of prior text on recall, seen clearly in tasks used in constructive memory research, were not present in this short-term memory task. These findings suggest that while within-sentence semantic relational and syntactic information may be used for partial analysis while material is still in working memory, this state does not permit access to already analyzed information in prior text.The authors express appreciation to Richard Schwartz, Ronnie Wilbur, and Harlan Schweer for their suggestions throughout the course of the study.     

Syntactic structure and acoustic pattern in speech perception Arthur Wingfield

The interaction of syntactic structure and acoustic pattern in perceptual segmentation of heard speech was investigated using sentences recorded with intonation patterns appropriate to their underlying structure and sentences where intonation was placed in direct conflict with the underlying structure. Speech samples were monitored through dichotic earphones with messages switched from one ear to the other either between or within major linguistic constituents. Analysis of errors in source localization and in sentence reproduction suggested a primary role of acoustic pattern in segmentation is to cue underlying syntactic structure. Two subsidiary experiments provided evidence that observed effects were related to active perceptual processing of the speech signal.     

Competence and processing in children's grammar of relative clauses

We report two toy-manipulation experiments investigating 4–5-year-old children's interpretations of relative clauses. In the first experiment we show that the frequency with which relatives modifying the matrix direct object are interpreted as referring to the matrix subject is sensitive to the nature of the material in the relative. Animacy of the relative direct object leads to an increase in subject coreference errors for relatives; a similar effect of animacy was not found for infinitival complements. We propose that such errors arise when the child's sentence processor is taxed. In our second experiment we compare children's interpretations of relatives to their interpretations of temporal participial complements. Children eschewed coreference between the complement and the object of a passive prepositional phrase in the case of temporal participials but not in the case of relatives. We interpret this result as evidence that children are capable of analyzing relatives as constituents of the NP node, and hence that this node is recursive in their grammars. We discuss the results of both experiments in the context of a two-stage parsing model, arguing that our data fit a picture of children's linguistic abilities in which the 4-year-old has a sophisticated competence grammar and a parsing mechanism of essentially the same structure as the adult's. We compare our approach to a number of other approaches to children's relative clause interpretations in the literature, arguing that these alternatives are too structure-specific and can lead to underestimations of the child's competence grammar. We conclude that our analysis is compatible with a picture of acquisition in which the child's competence grammar of relatives is not qualitatively different from the adult's.     

Producing Pronouns and Definite Noun Phrases: Do Speakers Use the Addressee’s Discourse Model?

We report two experiments that investigated the widely held assumption that speakers use the addressee's discourse model when choosing referring expressions (e.g., Ariel, 1990; Chafe, 1994; Givón, 1983; Prince, 1985), by manipulating whether the addressee could hear the immediately preceding linguistic context. Experiment 1 showed that speakers increased pronoun use (and decreased noun phrase use) when the referent was mentioned in the immediately preceding sentence compared to when it was not, even though the addressee did not hear the preceding sentence, indicating that speakers used their own, privileged discourse model when choosing referring expressions. The same pattern of results was found in Experiment 2. Speakers produced more pronouns when the immediately preceding sentence mentioned the referent than when it mentioned a referential competitor, regardless of whether the sentence was shared with their addressee. Thus, we conclude that choice of referring expression is determined by the referent's accessibility in the speaker's own discourse model rather than the addressee's.     

Sensibility and understanding in perceptual judgments

The main aim of this paper is to work towards an account of how sensibility and understanding combine in perceptual judgments, with the emphasis on the role of sensibility in both the justification of such judgments and the explanation of how it is possible for them to apply to an objective world. I argue that in the normal course of events sensory intuitions function as (animal-level) beliefs about the objective world; and that these in turn acquire the status of perceptual judgments to the extent that they are imbedded in and engaged with the high-level patterns of consciousness and reasoning characteristic of full-blown human judgment. In terms of this account sensibility is seamlessly integrated with understanding in perceptual judgments. This does not, however, imply that its contribution to perceptual judgments cannot be separated analytically, for in my terms the basic justification and objective reference of perceptual judgments are directly inherited from the sensory intuitions (functioning as sensory beliefs) which constitute those judgments. I conclude by showing how this account can be used to undermine John McDowell's claim that any attempt to assign a separable contribution to sensibility cannot avoid a commitment to the Myth of the Given.     

Limitations on the use of verb information during sentence comprehension

An eye tracking experiment was conducted in order to investigate the role of verb information in resolving structural ambiguity during sentence comprehension. Reading time was measured on sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrases (e.g., “The athlete revealed the problem⊙) that were continued as tensed sentence (S) complements or noun phrase (NP) complements. Ambiguous noun phrases were preceded either by verbs occurring most frequently with NP complements (NPbiased) or verbs occurring most frequently with S complements (S-biased). Reading time was also measured on sentences containing unambiguous S complements preceded by either NP-biased or S-biased verbs. The results showed that contrary to predictions made by verb guidance theories (e.g., constraint satisfaction; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994a, 1994b; Trueswell & Tanenhaus, 1994), for both NP- and S-biased verb conditions, sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements were read most quickly, and sentences containing temporarily ambiguous S complements were read more slowly than those containing unambiguous S complements.     

The Pronoun Attraction Effect for D(iscourse)-Linked Phrases: Evidence from Speakers of a Null Subject Language

Frazier and Clifton (2002) argue that a d(iscourse)-linked wh-phrase such as which boy attracts the reference of a pronoun in a subordinate clause. We translated Frazier and Clifton's materials from English into Romanian. Romanian is a pro-drop language in which null subjects are licensed by person and number agreement on the verb. We found that the d-linking attraction effect held for both pro and overt pronouns in Romanian. The fact that the effect is found for pro provides evidence that the attraction effect is not due to gender matching between the pronoun and the head of the d-linked phrase. We also tested native speakers of Romanian learning English as a second language on Frazier and Clifton's English materials Levels of coreference were highly similar to those for English native speakers and intermediate and advanced learners showed the d-linking attraction effect. We discuss the results in the context of Carminati's (2002) Position of Antecedent Hypothesis, arguing that this hypothesis can account for both the fact that higher levels of coreference with a wh-phrase antecedent were found for pro than for an overt pronoun in Romanian and the fact that the coreference levels between an overt pronoun and the wh-phrase antecedent were not elevated for Romanian-speaking second language learners of English.     

Linguistic and non-linguistic spatial categorization

Three experiments examine the relation between linguistic and non-linguistic categorization of spatial relations. We compare linguistic and non-linguistic responses to the same spatial stimuli. Contrary to earlier claims in the literature (Hayward, W. G. & Tarr, M. J. (1995). Spatial language and spatial representation. Cognition, 55, 39-84), we find that linguistic and non-linguistic spatial categories do not correspond. Rather, they appear to have an inverse relation such that the prototypes of linguistic categories, such as 'above', are boundaries in non-linguistic spatial categorization. Evidence for this inverse relation comes from linguistic acceptability judgments and the pattern of bias in participants' reproductions of location. Our findings suggest that while linguistic and non-linguistic spatial organization rely on a common underlying structure, that structure may play different roles in the two organizational systems.     

Kant's Conceptualism: a New Reading of the Transcendental Deduction

I defend a novel interpretation of Kant's conceptualism regarding the contents of our perceptual experiences. Conceptualist interpreters agree that Kant's Deduction aims to prove that intuitions require the categories for their spatiality and temporality. But conceptualists disagree as to which features of space and time make intuitions require the categories. Interpreters have cited the singularity, unity, infinity, and homogeneity of space and time. But this is incompatible with Kant's Aesthetic, which aims to prove that these same features qualify space and time as intuitions, not concepts. On my interpretation, the feature is objectivity. Space and time are objective, in that they ground our judgments in geometry and mechanics.     

Ambiguous pronoun resolution: contrasting the first-mention and subject-preference accounts

A visual-world eye-tracking experiment investigated the influence of order of mention and grammatical role on resolution of ambiguous pronouns in Finnish. According to the first-mention account, general cognitive structure-building processes make the first-mentioned noun phrase the preferred antecedent of an ambiguous pronoun. According to the subject-preference account, the preferred antecedent is the grammatical subject of the preceding clause or sentence. Participants listened to sentences in either subject-verb-object or object-verb-subject order; each was followed by a sentence containing an ambiguous pronoun that referred to either the subject or the object. Participants' eye movements were monitored while they looked at pictures representing the two possible antecedents of each pronoun. Analyses of the fixations on the pictures showed that listeners used both order-of-mention and grammatical-role information to resolve ambiguous pronouns.     

Lexical access in the production of pronouns

Speakers can use pronouns when their conceptual referents are accessible from the preceding discourse, as in 'The flower is red. It turns blue'. Theories of language production agree that in order to produce a noun semantic, syntactic, and phonological information must be accessed. However, little is known about lexical access to pronouns. In this paper, we propose a model of pronoun access in German. Since the forms of German pronouns depend on the grammatical gender of the nouns they replace, the model claims that speakers must access the syntactic representation of the replaced noun (its lemma) to select a pronoun. In two experiments using the lexical decision during naming paradigm [Levelt, W.J.M., Schriefers, H., Vorberg, D., Meyer, A.S., Pechmann, T., Havinga, J., 1991a. The time course of lexical access in speech production: a study of picture naming. Psychological Review 98, 122-142], we investigated whether lemma access automatically entails the activation of the corresponding word form or whether a word form is only activated when the noun itself is produced, but not when it is replaced by a pronoun. Experiment 1 showed that during pronoun production the phonological form of the replaced noun is activated. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this phonological activation was not a residual of the use of the noun in the preceding sentence. Thus, when a pronoun is produced, the lemma and the phonological form of the replaced noun become reactivated.