TY - GEN
T1 - Pronoun resolution and the influence of syntactic and semantic information on discourse prominence
AU - Rose, Ralph
PY - 2007/1/1
Y1 - 2007/1/1
N2 - Beginning with the observation that syntactic and semantic information often coincide (i.e., subjects are often agents, objects often patients), this study investigates the possibility that preference to resolve a sentence-initial pronoun to a syntactically prominent antecedent might actually be better explained in terms of preference for resolving to a semantically prominent antecedent. The study takes Discourse Prominence Theory (Gordon and Hendrick [11, 12]) as an underlying framework. Results of three psycholinguistic experiments using a self-paced reading task show that both syntactic and semantic information guide readers' pronoun resolution preferences. This suggests a revised understanding of Discourse Prominence Theory in which the prominence of discourse referents is determined through a complex process depending on multiple linguistic factors. Results further show that the relative degree of prominence among competing candidates influences resolution processes.
AB - Beginning with the observation that syntactic and semantic information often coincide (i.e., subjects are often agents, objects often patients), this study investigates the possibility that preference to resolve a sentence-initial pronoun to a syntactically prominent antecedent might actually be better explained in terms of preference for resolving to a semantically prominent antecedent. The study takes Discourse Prominence Theory (Gordon and Hendrick [11, 12]) as an underlying framework. Results of three psycholinguistic experiments using a self-paced reading task show that both syntactic and semantic information guide readers' pronoun resolution preferences. This suggests a revised understanding of Discourse Prominence Theory in which the prominence of discourse referents is determined through a complex process depending on multiple linguistic factors. Results further show that the relative degree of prominence among competing candidates influences resolution processes.
KW - Discourse prominence theory
KW - Pronoun resolution
KW - Repeatedname penalty
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=37249048366&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=37249048366&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-540-71412-5_3
DO - 10.1007/978-3-540-71412-5_3
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:37249048366
SN - 9783540714118
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 28
EP - 43
BT - Anaphora
PB - Springer Verlag
T2 - 6th Discourse Anaphora and Anaphor Resolution Colloquium, DAARC 2007
Y2 - 29 March 2007 through 30 March 2007
ER -