Language specific preferences in anaphor resolution: Exposure or gricean maxims?

Barbara Hemforth (1) , Lars Konieczny (2) , Christoph Scheepers (3) , Saveria Colonna (4) , Sarah Schimke (5) , Peter Baumann (2) , Joël Pynte (1)

1 LPNCog / UMR 8189 - Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurosciences Cognitives
2 Center for Cognitive Science
3 University of Dundee
4 SFL - Structures Formelles du Langage
5 Institut für Germanistik

In this paper we will present evidence for language specific preferences in anaphor resolution from two series of experiments in English, German, and French. For within sentence anaphor resolution with "before" subclauses, we will show that English and German follow the generally assumed preference for the first mentioned NP or subject of the sentence, whereas French shows a clear preference for the object of the matrix clause. We will argue that our data can most easily be explained by a usage-based account, linking comprehension preferences to production preferences.

Domaines: Linguistique; Psychologie

Barbara Hemforth, Lars Konieczny, Christoph Scheepers, Saveria Colonna, Sarah Schimke, et al.. Language specific preferences in anaphor resolution: Exposure or gricean maxims?. 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2010, United States. pp.2218-2223, 2010. ⟨hal-01015048⟩