Information Structure Affects the Resolution of the Subject Pronouns Er and Der in Spoken German Discourse
Two visual-world eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the resolution of ambiguous German pronouns, the personal pronoun (er) and the d-pronoun (der) in spoken discourse. Specifically, the influence of the order of mention and the information status of the antecedent candidates on th...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Presses universitaires de Caen
2013-07-01
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| Series: | Discours |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/discours/8756 |
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| Summary: | Two visual-world eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the resolution of ambiguous German pronouns, the personal pronoun (er) and the d-pronoun (der) in spoken discourse. Specifically, the influence of the order of mention and the information status of the antecedent candidates on the resolution preferences following canonical and non-canonical antecedent structures was explored. The results suggest that the two pronominal forms have different coreference functions when they follow canonical topic-comment antecedent structures, in that personal pronouns prefer first-mentioned topical antecedents and d-pronouns second-mentioned non-topical antecedents. However, after non-canonically marked topic-focus antecedent structures, the pronouns had overlapping functions, namely an overall preference towards the second-mentioned focused entity. The findings suggest that pronoun resolution is affected by the information status of the antecedent candidates and that resolution preferences change across antecedent word orders. |
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| ISSN: | 1963-1723 |