Roeser, J

Shipova, E

Vasishth, S

Zimmermann, M

English

Nottingham Trent Institutional Repository (IRep)

Locality rules out variable binding in coreference resolutionJens Roeser (Nottingham Trent University), Evgeniya Shipova, Shravan Vasishth & Malte Zimmer-mann (University of Potsdam)jens.roeser2014@my.ntu.ac.ukIntroduction: Two mechanisms are assumed in pronoun interpretation (e.g., Grodzinsky andReinhart, 1993): Variable binding is employed for c-commanding referents, the matrix subject in(2); coreference applies for non c-commanding referents, the NP in the relative clause in (2). InPrimitives of Binding (POB) (Reuland, 2001) syntax/semantic variable binding is claimed to requireless processing costs than discourse-based coreference (Runner and Head, 2014). Conversely,Cunnings et al. (2014) proposed that the linearly most recent NP is preferred in pronoun inter-pretation. We set out to investigate whether recency or interpretive mechanism influences theinterpretation of the structurally ambiguous German possessive seinen ‘his’ as in (2). Contexts (1)are used to introduce the possessed element (e.g., Vater ‘father’ in (2)) of either Fritz in (1-a) orboth Fritz and Ernst in (1-b) leaving the pronoun reference in (2) ambiguous. Antecedents werepresented in two positions (2). In a disambiguating context (1-a), the pronoun requires coreferencefor the non c-commanding referent (2-a) but variable binding for the matrix subject (2-b).(1) a. . . . FritzsFritz’sVaterfatherwirdwill bebeiinAusfällencancellationin der Regelusuallyangerufen.calledb. . . . FritzFritzundandErnstErnstmüssenmustihretheirVäterfathersanrufen.call(2) a. . . . hattehasErnsti,ErnstdenwhoFritzjFritzeigentlichactuallykennt,knowsunverzüglichimmediatelyseineni/jhisVaterfatherperbyHandycell phoneangerufen.calledb. . . . hattehasFritzi,FritzdenwhoErnstjErnsteigentlichactuallykennt,knowsunverzüglichimmediatelyseineni/jhisVaterfatherperbyHandycell phoneangerufen.calledIf coreference is more costly than variable binding as predicted by POB (Reuland, 2001),more processing difficulty is expected for the pronoun in (2-a) than for the pronoun in (2-b) inan unambiguous context. In contrast NP recency (Cunnings et al., 2014) predicts processingfacilitation in (2-a) for a coreference interpretation compared to variable binding in (2-b).Method: Contexts (1) and sentences in self-paced reading (2) (n=24) were presented to Germannatives (n=60). Questions targeting the pronoun interpretation were asked. In ambiguous con-texts, the matrix subject was labelled as “correct” referent. Four Latin square lists included 36randomly interspersed fillers.Results: Lower accuracies were observed for (2-b) vs (2-a) in unambiguous contexts (Fig. 1).In the pronoun region, ambiguous contexts revealed significantly longer reading times (RTs) thanunambiguous contexts. For the possessed noun region, shorter RTs were found in (2-a) vs (2-b)for unambiguous contexts and longer RTs in (2-a) vs (2-b) for ambiguous contexts (Fig. 2).llll0.50.60.7(2−a) (2−b)AccuracyReferencellambiguousunambiguousFig. 1: Question response accuracy (with 95% CIs)llll5.895.915.93(2−a) (2−b)Log RT (in ms)ReferencellambiguousunambiguousFig. 2: RT in possessed noun region (with 95% CIs)Discussion: Recency facilitation in unambiguous contexts was seen in response accuracy andRTs. The ambiguity effect shows that both antecedents were considered for the dependency com-putation. These results show processing advantage for more recent NPs in pronoun resolution andsuggest that variable binders have no precedence over coreferent NPs during on-line processing.

Locality rules out variable binding in coreference resolution

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