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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| Vydáno v: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/discours, |
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| Hlavní autor: | |
| Médium: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Jazyk: | Anglais |
| Vydáno: |
Discours
2013
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| Témata: | |
| On-line přístup: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Shrnutí: | 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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