The Role of Information Structure in Pronoun Resolution of Child, Adult L1 and Adult L2 Speakers

• Author / Creator

  Hert, Regina

• Research on pronoun resolution has a long-standing tradition and covers a wide range of factors that have been shown to affect the referential link between a pronoun and its referent.
  The present dissertation focuses on information structural effects in subject and object pronoun resolution in German child and adult speakers as well as second language learners. By doing so, it aims to address to what extent cues of information structure, such as focus marking, can influence pronoun processing and whether the effect differs between the different groups.
  The dissertation comprises three studies and uses eye-tracking as well as behavioural data. The first study includes child and adult speakers. It investigates the effect of focus marking via it-clefts for the processing of referents as well as object pronouns and reflexives. This study also contributes to the clarification of what the underlying issue in children's resolution of object pronouns is. The results suggest that, unlike adults, children's discourse processing is more local which – if the pronoun is not restricted in its referential function – can lead to children's selecting the incorrect referent.
  The second study manipulates information structure using prosodic focus marking and word order to investigate adults' online use of focus cues in contrast to grammatical role for the resolution of subject and demonstrative pronouns. The results show the personal pronoun to be affected more by subjecthood than focus marking, whereas the demonstrative pronoun is influenced by focus marking to a greater extent than by objecthood, supporting the form-specific approach (Kaiser & Trueswell, 2008).
  It further addresses the question whether 'prominence' can explain pronoun interpretation preferences. It has been argued that the reason why certain referents are linked with a pronoun is that they are more prominent in the discourse than others (e.g. Arnold et al., 2007; Von Heusinger & Schumacher, 2019). In contrast with this assumption, the study suggests that prominence cannot explain why the subject referent is preferred even when the object referent receives more attention than the subject referent.
  The third study examines how second language speakers of German use information structure for the interpretation of subject pronouns. The results suggest that focus marking in combination with grammatical role leads to a preference emerging in L2 speakers that is similar to L1 speakers found in study 2. Additionally, it tests whether accenting subject and object pronouns affects referent selection in L1 and L2 speakers. L2 speakers seem to rely more on subjecthood during resolution of both pronouns which is similar to L1 speakers with the exception of the accented subject pronoun. Here, L1 speakers select the object referent more often than the subject referent.

  Together, these studies give new insights to referent processing in child and adult L1 speakers as well as adult L2 speakers.
  That is, attention shifts to the focused referent during processing, but that effect does not always proceed to the final interpretation of the pronoun. Precisely this finding is why I argue against prominence driving pronoun resolution, but rather assume a special status for the subject role (cf. Mecklinger et al., 1995; Meng & Bader, 2000a,b; Schriefers et al., 1995).
  Crucially, the studies show that information structure not only influences referential function of various pronoun types to different degrees but they also show that the extent of the effect of information structure differs in the various participant groups.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • pronoun processing
  • pronoun interpretation
  • information structure

• Graduation date

  Fall 2023

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-h8zb-he20

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.