Representations underlying pronoun choice in Italian and English - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Année : 2022

Representations underlying pronoun choice in Italian and English

Kumiko Fukumura
Sandra Villata
  • Fonction : Auteur
Shi Zhang
  • Fonction : Auteur
Francesca Foppolo
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

Research has shown that speakers use fewer pronouns when the referential candidates are more similar and hence compete more strongly. Here we examined the locus of such an effect, investigating (1) whether pronoun use is affected by the referents’ competition at a non-linguistic level only (non-linguistic competition account) or whether it is also affected by competition arising from the antecedents’ similarities (linguistic competition account) and (2) the extent to which this depends on the type of pronoun. Speakers used Italian null pronouns and English pronouns less often (relative to full nouns) when the referential candidates compete more strongly situationally, while the antecedents’ semantic, grammatical or phonological similarity did not affect the rates of either pronouns, providing support for the non-linguistic competition account. However, unlike English pronouns, Italian null pronouns were unaffected by gender congruence between human referents, running counter to the gender effect for the use of non-gendered overt pronouns reported earlier. Hence, while both null and overt pronouns are sensitive to non-linguistic competition, what similarity affects non-linguistic competition partly depends on the type of pronouns.

Domaines

Linguistique

Dates et versions

hal-03414765 , version 1 (04-11-2021)

Identifiants

Citer

Kumiko Fukumura, Coralie Hervé, Sandra Villata, Shi Zhang, Francesca Foppolo. Representations underlying pronoun choice in Italian and English. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2022, 75 (8), pp.1428-1447. ⟨10.1177/17470218211051989⟩. ⟨hal-03414765⟩
19 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Mastodon Facebook X LinkedIn More