Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T13:53:53.593Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Anaphora: Experimental Methods for Investigating Coreference

from Part II - Experimental Studies of Specific Phenomena

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2021

By
Elsi Kaiser
Edited by
Grant Goodall
Grant Goodall
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Get access

Summary

Anaphora play a key role in syntactic theorizing, but experimental investigations of coreference – especially when using acceptability judgments – involve unique methodological challenges. Given that non-linguist participants are unlikely to be familiar with linguistic notations such as the use of subscripts, how can researchers indicate the coreference relation whose acceptability is being assessed? In other words, if a researcher wants to test whether a particular coindexation relation is acceptable, how can this information be conveyed to participants? Ignoring this issue can yield uninterpretable data. This chapter provides an in-depth discussion of different methods for indicating coreference when researchers want to elicit acceptability judgments from participants who are not trained linguists. The chapter also discusses other approaches relevant for anaphora, including antecedent-choice tasks and real-time methods (self-paced reading, eye-tracking), and explains how they differ in terms of the kind of data they yield and thus the kinds of hypotheses they can be used to investigate.

Keywords

pronounsreflexivesanaphoraexperimental methodsexperimental syntaxacceptability judgmentscoreferenceBinding Theorysentence processing
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax , pp. 278 - 314
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bach, E. & Partee, B. H. (1980). Anaphora and semantic structure. In Kreiman, J. & Ojeda, A. E., eds., Papers from the Parasession on Pronouns and Anaphora. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 1–28. [Reprinted in Partee, B. H. 2004. Compositionality in Formal Semantics: Selected Papers by Barbara H. Partee. Oxford: Blackwell, 122–152.]Google Scholar
Badecker, W. & Straub, K. (2002). The processing role of structural constraints on interpretation of pronouns and anaphors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28(4), 748–769.Google ScholarPubMed
Bader, M. & Häussler, J. (2010). Toward a model of grammaticality judgments. Journal of Linguistics, 46, 273–330.Google Scholar
Bard, E. G., Robertson, D., & Sorace, A. (1996). Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language, 72, 32–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. & Schlesewsky, M. (2007). The wolf in sheep’s clothing: against a new judgment-driven imperialism. Theoretical Linguistics, 33, 319–333.Google Scholar
Büring, D. (2011). Pronouns. In von Heusinger, K., Maienborn, C., & Portner, P., eds., Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 33/2). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 971–996.Google Scholar
Carden, G. & Dieterich, T. (1981). Introspection, observation, and experiment: An example where experiments pay off. In PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, 1980. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 583–597.Google Scholar
Carminati, M.-N. (2005). Processing reflexes of the Feature Hierarchy (Person > Number > Gender) and implications for linguistic theory. Lingua, 115, 259–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carminati, M.-N., Frazier, L., & Rayner, K. (2002). Bound variables and c-command. Journal of Semantics, 19, 1–34.Google Scholar
Chien, Y.-C. & Wexler, K. (1990). Children’s knowledge of locality conditions in binding as evidence for the modularity of syntax and pragmatics. Language Acquisition, 1, 225–295.Google Scholar
Cowart, W. (1997). Experimental Syntax: Applying Objective Methods to Sentence Judgments. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Culbertson, J. & Gross, S. (2009). Are linguists better subjects? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 60, 721–736.Google Scholar
Cunnings, I. & Felser, C. (2013). The role of working memory in the processing of reflexives. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28, 188–219.Google Scholar
Cunnings, I., Patterson, C., & Felser, C. (2015) Structural constraints on pronoun binding and coreference: Evidence from eye movements during reading. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 840.Google Scholar
Cunnings, I. & Sturt, P. (2014). Coargumenthood and the processing of reflexives. Journal of Memory and Language 75, 117–139.Google Scholar
Cunnings, I. & Sturt, P. (2018). Coargumenthood and the processing of pronouns. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(10), 1235–1251.Google Scholar
Dąbrowska, E. (2010). Naïve v. expert intuitions: An empirical study of acceptability judgments. The Linguistic Review, 27, 1–23.Google Scholar
Dillon, B. (2014). Syntactic memory in the comprehension of reflexive dependencies: An overview. Language and Linguistics Compass, 8(5), 171–187.Google Scholar
Dillon, B., Chow, W.-Y., Wagers, M., Guo, T., Liu, F., & Phillips, C. (2014). The structure-sensitivity of memory access: Evidence from Mandarin Chinese. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1025.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dillon, B., Chow, W.-Y., & Xiang, M. (2016). The relationship between anaphor features and antecedent retrieval: Comparing Mandarin ziji and ta-ziji. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1966.Google Scholar
Dillon, B., Mishler, A., Sloggett, S., & Phillips, C. (2013). Contrasting intrusion profiles for agreement and anaphora: Experimental and modeling evidence. Journal of Memory and Language, 69, 85–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drummer, J.-D. & Felser, C. (2018). Cataphoric pronoun resolution in native and non-native sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 101, 97–113.Google Scholar
Evans, G. (1977). Pronouns, quantifiers, and relative clauses. The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 7(3), 467–536.Google Scholar
Fabrigar, L. R. & Paik, J.-E. S. (2007). Thurstone scales. In Salkind, N., ed., Encyclopedia of Measurement and Statistics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 1003–1005.Google Scholar
Featherston, S. (2002). Coreferential objects in German: Experimental evidence on reflexivity. Linguistische Berichte, 192, 457–484.Google Scholar
Featherston, S. (2008). Thermometer judgments as linguistic evidence. In Riehl, C. M. & Rothe, A., eds., Was ist linguistische Evidenz? Aachen: Shaker, pp. 69–90.Google Scholar
Foraker, S. (2003). The processing of logophoric reflexives shows discourse and locality constraints. Paper presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Fraundorf, S. H., Benjamin, A. S., & Watson, D. G. (2013). What happened (and what didn’t): Discourse constraints on encoding of plausible alternatives. Journal of Memory and Language, 69, 196–227.Google Scholar
Frazier, L. & Clifton, C. (2000). On bound variable interpretations: The LF-Only Hypothesis. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 125–139.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fukuda, S., Goodall, G., Michel, D., & Beecher, H. (2012). Is Magnitude Estimation worth the trouble? In Choi, J., Hogue, E. A., Punske, J., Tat, D., Schertz, J., & Trueman, A., eds., Proceedings of the 29th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 328–336.Google Scholar
Fukumura, K., Hyönä, J., & Scholfield, M. (2013). Gender affects semantic competition: The effect of gender in a non-gender-marking language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39(4), pp. 1012–1021.Google Scholar
Garnham, A. (2001). Mental Models and the Interpretation of Anaphora. Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Geach, P. (1962). Reference and Generality. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gerken, L.-A. & Bever, T. (1986). Linguistic intuitions are the result of interactions between perceptual processes and linguistic universals. Cognitive Science, 10, 457–476.Google Scholar
Gibson, E. & Fedorenko, , E. (2013). The need for quantitative methods in syntax and semantics research. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28(1–2), 88–124.Google Scholar
Gordon, P. C. & Hendrick, R. (1997). Intuitive knowledge of linguistic co-reference. Cognition, 62, 325–370.Google Scholar
Grosz, P. G., Patel-Grosz, P., Fedorenko, E., & Gibson, E. (2015). Constraints on donkey pronouns. Journal of Semantics, 32(4), 619–648.Google Scholar
Han, C.-h., Storoshenko, D., Leung, B., & Kim, K. (2015). The time course of long distance anaphor processing in Korean. Korean Linguistics, 17(1), 1–32.Google Scholar
Harris, T., Wexler, K., & Holcomb, P. (2000). An ERP investigation of binding and coreference. Brain and Language, 75, 313–346.Google Scholar
Häussler, J. & Juzek, T. S. (2017). Hot topics surrounding acceptability judgement tasks. In Featherston, S., Hörnig, R., Steinberg, R., Umbreit, B., & Wallis, J., eds., Proceedings of Linguistic Evidence 2016: Empirical, Theoretical, and Computational Perspectives. University of Tübingen. http://dx.doi.org/10.15496/publikation-19039Google Scholar
He, X. & Kaiser, E. (2016). Processing the Chinese reflexive “ziji”: Effects of featural constraints on anaphor resolution. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 284.Google Scholar
Huang, Y. (2000). Anaphora: A Cross-Linguistic Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ionin, T. & Zyzik, E. (2014). Judgment and interpretation tasks in second language research. Review article for Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 34, 1–28.Google Scholar
Kaiser, E. (2015). Perspective-shifting and free indirect discourse: Experimental investigations. In S. D’Antonio, M. Moroney, & C. R.Little, eds, Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 25 (SALT 25), pp. 346–372.Google Scholar
Kaiser, E., Nichols, J., & Wang, C. (2018). Experimenting with imposters: What modulates choice of person agreement in pronouns? Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, 22(1), 505–521.Google Scholar
Kaiser, E. & Runner, J. T. (2008). Intensifiers in German and Dutch Anaphor Resolution. In Abner, N. & Bishop, J., eds., Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 265–273.Google Scholar
Kaiser, E., Runner, J., Sussman, R., & Tanenhaus, M. (2009). Structural and semantic constraints on the resolution of pronouns and reflexives. Cognition, 112, 55–80.Google Scholar
Karttunen, L. (1969). Pronouns and variables. In Binnick, R. I., Davidson, A., Green, G. M., & Morgan, J. L., eds., Proceedings of the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 108–116.Google Scholar
Kazanina, N., Lau, E. F., Lieberman, M., Yoshida, M., & Philips, C. (2007). The effect of syntactic constraints on the processing of backwards anaphora. Journal of Memory and Language, 56, 384–409.Google Scholar
Keller, F. & Asudeh, A. (2001). Constraints on linguistic coreference: Structural vs. pragmatic factors. In Moore, J. & Stenning, K. (eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 483–488.Google Scholar
Keller, F. (2000). Gradience in grammar: Experimental and computational aspects of degrees of grammaticality. Doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Kreiner, H., Sturt, P., & Garrod, S. (2008). Processing definitional and stereotypical gender in reference resolution: Evidence from eye-movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 58(2), 239–261.Google Scholar
Kush, D. & Eik, R. (2019). Antecedent accessibility and exceptional covariation: Evidence from Norwegian Donkey Pronouns. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1), 96. DOI:10.5334/gjgl.930Google Scholar
Kush, D., Lidz, J., & Phillips, C. (2015). Relation-sensitive retrieval: Evidence from bound variable pronouns. Journal of Memory and Language, 82, 18–40.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Lago, S., Stutter Garcia, A., & Felser, C. (2018). The role of native and non-native grammars in the comprehension of possessive pronouns. Second Language Research, 35(3), 319–349.Google Scholar
Langsford, S. et al. (2018). Quantifying sentence acceptability measures: Reliability, bias, and variability. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 3(1), 37. DOI:10.5334/gjgl.396Google Scholar
Maia, J. & Morris, R. (2019). The semantics–pragmatics of typographic emphasis in discourse. Poster presented at the 32nd Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing.Google Scholar
Montrul, S., Dias, R., & Santos, H. (2011). Clitics and object expression in the L3 acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese: Structural similarity matters for transfer. Second Language Research, 27, 21–58.Google Scholar
Moulton, K., Chan, Q., Cheng, T., Han, C.-h., Kim, K., & Nickel-Thompson, S. (2018). Focus on cataphora: Experiments in context. Linguistic Inquiry 49(1) 151–168.Google Scholar
Myers, J. (2009). Syntactic judgment experiments. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3, 406–423.Google Scholar
Nicenboim, B., Vasishth, S., Engelmann, F., & Suckow, K. (2018). Exploratory and confirmatory analyses in sentence processing: A case study of number interference in German. Cognitive Science, 42, 4, 1075–1100.Google Scholar
Nicol, J. & Swinney, D. (1989). The role of structure in coreference assignment during sentence comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 18, 5–20.Google Scholar
Parker, D. & Phillips, C. (2017). Reflexive attraction in comprehension is selective. Journal of Memory and Language, 94, 272–290.Google Scholar
Parker, D., Lago, S., & Phillips, C. (2015). Interference in the processing of adjunct control. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1–13.Google Scholar
Patil, U., Vasishth, S., & Lewis, R. L. (2016). Retrieval interference in syntactic processing: The case of reflexive binding in English. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1–18.Google Scholar
Patterson, C., Trompelt, H., & Felser, C. (2014). The online application of binding condition B in native and non-native pronoun resolution. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pearlmutter, N., Garnsey, S., & Bock, K. (1999). Agreement processes in sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 427–456.Google Scholar
Phillips, C. & Lasnik, H. (2003). Linguistics and empirical evidence: Reply to Edelman and Christiansen. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 61–62.Google Scholar
Pollard, C. & Sag, I. (1992). The processing of logophoric reflexives shows discourse and locality constraints. Linguistic Inquiry, 23(2), 261–303.Google Scholar
Rebuschat, P. (2013). Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge in second language research. Language Learning, 63, 595–626.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinhart, T. (1982). Pragmatics and linguistics: An analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica, 27, 53–94.Google Scholar
Reinhart, T. (1983a). Anaphora and Semantic Interpretation. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Reinhart, T. (1983b). Coreference and bound anaphora: A restatement of the anaphora question. Linguistics and Philosophy, 6, 47–88.Google Scholar
Reinhart, T. (2002). The theta system: An overview. Theoretical Linguistics, 28, 229–290.Google Scholar
Rigalleau, F., Caplan, D., & Baudiffier, V. (2004). New arguments in favour of an automatic gender pronominal process. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A: Human Experimental Psychology, 57A(5), 893–933.Google Scholar
Roberts, J., Laughlin, J., & Wedel, D. (1999). Validity issues in the Likert and Thurstone approaches to attitude measurement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59(2), 211–233.Google Scholar
Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2003). Assignment of reference to reflexives and pronouns in picture noun phrases: Evidence from eye movements. Cognition, 89, B1–B13.Google Scholar
Schumacher, P. B., Bisang, W., & Sun, L. (2011). Perspective in the processing of the Chinese reflexive ziji: ERP evidence. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 7009, 119–131.Google Scholar
Schütze, C. (1996). The Empirical Base of Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schütze, C. & Sprouse, J. (2013). Judgment data. In Podesva, R. J. & Sharma, D., eds., Research Methods in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27–50.Google Scholar
Sekerina, I., Stromswold, K., & Hestvik, A. (2004). How adults and children process referentially ambiguous pronouns. Journal of Child Language, 31, 123–152.Google Scholar
Sloggett, S. & Dillon, B. (2018). Person blocking in reflexive processing: When “I” matter more than “them.” Talk given at CUNY 2018, UC Davis.Google Scholar
Sprouse, J. (2007). Continuous acceptability, categorical grammaticality, and experimental syntax. Biolinguistics, 1, 123–134.Google Scholar
Sprouse, J. & Almeida, , D. (2017). Design sensitivity and statistical power in acceptability judgment experiments. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 2(1), 14.1–32. DOI:10.5334/gjgl.236Google Scholar
Sprouse, J., Schütze, C. T., & Almeida, D. (2013). A comparison of informal and formal acceptability judgments using a random sample from Linguistic Inquiry 2001–2010. Lingua, 134, 219–248.Google Scholar
Stevens, S. (1975). Psychophysics: Introduction to Its Perceptual, Neural, and Social Prospects. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Sturt, P. (2003). The time-course of the application of binding constraints in reference resolution. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 542–562.Google Scholar
Temme, A. & Verhoeven, E. (2017). Backward binding as a psych effect: A binding illusion? Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 36(2), 279–308.Google Scholar
Thurstone, L. (1927). A law of comparative judgment. Psychological Review, 34(4), 273.Google Scholar
Vasishth, S., Brüssow, S., Lewis, R. L., & Drenhaus, H. (2008). Processing polarity: How the ungrammatical intrudes on the grammatical. Cognitive Science, 32(4), 685–712.Google Scholar
Wagers, M. W., Lau, E. F., & Phillips, C. (2009). Agreement attraction in comprehension: Representations and processes. Journal of Memory and Language, 61(2), 206–237.Google Scholar
Weskott, T. & Fanselow, G. (2011). On the informativity of different measures of linguistic acceptability. Language, 87(2), 249–273.Google Scholar
Xiang, M., Dillon, B., & Phillips, C. (2009). Illusory licensing effects across dependency types: ERP evidence. Brain and Language, 108, 1, 40–55.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×