ALTERNATIVE METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF CONCEPTUAL ANAPHORA
This paper intends to study the processes involved in resolving plural and singular pronouns when their antecedent is a collective (e.g., “the team”). Our main goal in choosing a topic that has been vastly studied (e.g., OAKHILL et al., 2012; FARIA; LEITÃO; FERRARI-NETO, 2012) was to find a meth...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Universidade Estadual de Londrina
2014-03-01
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| Series: | Signum: Estudos da Linguagem |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/signum/article/view/15480/pdf_19 |
| Summary: | This paper intends to study the processes involved in resolving
plural and singular pronouns when their antecedent is a collective (e.g., “the
team”). Our main goal in choosing a topic that has been vastly studied (e.g.,
OAKHILL et al., 2012; FARIA; LEITÃO; FERRARI-NETO, 2012) was
to find a methodological approach to explain the different results reported
by previous research. Besides that, we aim at comprehending the semantic
characteristics of collectives that can influence pronominal resolution, an
issue consistently neglected by previous studies. Considering these goals, we
developed an eye-tracking experiment in which we compared: (a) the
processing of plural and singular pronouns; (b) the influence institutional
and distributive predicates exert over pronominal resolution. Our findings
are supported by previous data (CARREIRAS; GERNSBACHER, 1992;
OAKHILL et al., 1992), indicating that, in general, plural pronouns are easier
to process compared to singular ones. Furthermore, our conclusion points
out to the fact that the type of predication attributed to a collective term
can attenuate or strengthen the difference in cognitive cost involved in
processing plural and singular pronouns |
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| ISSN: | 1516-3083 2237-4876 |