Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:50:25.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Testing the effect of an arbitrary subject pronoun on relative clause comprehension: a study with Hebrew-speaking children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Yair HAENDLER  and
Flavia ADANI
Yair HAENDLER*
Affiliation:
Université Paris Diderot, Laboratoire de linguistique formelle
Flavia ADANI
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam, Linguistics Department
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous studies have found that Hebrew-speaking children accurately comprehend object relatives (OR) with an embedded non-referential arbitrary subject pronoun (ASP). The facilitation of ORs with embedded pronouns is expected both from a discourse-pragmatics perspective and within a syntax-based locality approach. However, the specific effect of ASP might also be driven by a mismatch in grammatical features between the head noun and the pronoun, or by its relatively undemanding referential properties. We tested these possibilities by comparing ORs whose embedded subject is either ASP, a referential pronoun, or a lexical noun phrase. In all conditions, grammatical features were controlled. In a referent-identification task, the matching features made ORs with embedded pronouns difficult for five-year-olds. Accuracy was particularly low when the embedded pronoun was referential. These results indicate that embedded pronouns do not facilitate ORs across the board, and that the referential properties of pronouns affect OR processing.

Keywords

relative clausespronounsreferentiality
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , July 2018 , pp. 959 - 980
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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

Adani, F., Forgiarini, M., Guasti, M. T., & van der Lely, H. K. J. (2014). Number dissimilarities facilitate the comprehension of relative clauses in children with (Grammatical) Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Child Language, 41, 811–41.Google Scholar
Adani, F., & Fritzsche, T. (2015). On the relation between implicit and explicit measures of child language development: evidence from relative clause processing in 4-year-olds and adults. In Grillo, E. & Jepson, K. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 14–26). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Adani, F., van der Lely, H. K. J., Forgiarini, M., & Guasti, M. T. (2010). Grammatical feature dissimilarities make relative clauses easier: a comprehension study with Italian children. Lingua, 120, 2148–66.Google Scholar
Allen, S. E. M., Hughes, M. E., & Skarabela, B. (2015). The role of cognitive accessibility in children's referential choice. In Serratrice, L. & Allen, S. E. M. (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 123–54). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Ariel, M. (1999). Cognitive universals and linguistic conventions: the case of resumptive pronouns. Studies in Language, 23, 217–69.Google Scholar
Ariel, M. (2001). Accessibility theory: an overview. In Sanders, T., Schilperhood, J., & Spooren, W. (Eds.), Text representation, (pp. 29–87). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Arnold, J. E. (2010). How speakers refer: the role of accessibility. Language and Linguistics Compass, 4(4), 187–203.Google Scholar
Arnold, J. E., & Griffin, Z. (2007). The effect of additional character on choice of referring expression: everyone counts. Journal of Memory and Language, 56, 521–36.Google Scholar
Arnon, I. (2010). Rethinking child difficulty: the effect of NP type on children's processing of relative clauses in Hebrew. Journal of Child Language, 37, 27–57.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D. J., & Bates, D. M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 390–412.Google Scholar
Bates, D. M., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67, 148.Google Scholar
Belletti, A., Friedmann, N., Brunato, D., & Rizzi, L. (2012). Does gender make a difference? Comparing the effect of gender on children's comprehension of relative clauses in Hebrew and Italian. Lingua, 122, 1053–69.Google Scholar
Bock, J. K., & Warren, R. K. (1985). Conceptual accessibility and syntactic structure in sentence formulation. Cognition, 21, 47–67.Google Scholar
Boeckx, C. (2003). Islands and chains: resumption as stranding. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Brandt, S., Kidd, E., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2009). The discourse bases of relativization: an investigation of young German- and English-speaking children's comprehension of relative clauses. Cognitive Linguistics, 20, 539–70.Google Scholar
Brandt, S., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2016). German children's use of word order and case marking to interpret simple and complex sentences: testing differences between constructions and lexical items. Language, Learning, and Development, 12, 156–82.Google Scholar
Brown-Schmidt, S. (2009). The role of executive function in perspective-taking during on-line language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 16, 893–900.Google Scholar
Carminati, M. N. (2005). Processing reflexes of the Feature Hierarchy (Person > Number > Gender) and implications for linguistic theory. Lingua, 115, 259–85.+Number+>+Gender)+and+implications+for+linguistic+theory.+Lingua,+115,+259–85.>Google Scholar
Contemori, C., & Marinis, T. (2014). The impact of number mismatch and passives on the real-time processing of relative clauses. Journal of Child Language, 41, 658–89.Google Scholar
Coyer, C. (2009). Acquisition of relatives in French and the que/qui issue. Unpublished dissertation, University of Siena.Google Scholar
De Cat, C. (2015). The cognitive underpinnings of referential abilities. In Serratrice, L. & Allen, S. E. M. (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 213–40). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Diessel, H., & Tomasello, M. (2000). The development of relative clauses in spontaneous child speech. Cognitive Linguistics, 11(1/2), 131–51.Google Scholar
Doron, E. (1982). On the syntax and semantics of resumptive pronouns. Texas Linguistic Forum, 19, 1–48.Google Scholar
Epley, N., Morewedge, C., & Keysar, B. (2004). Perspective taking in children and adults: equivalent egocentrism but differential correction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 760–8.Google Scholar
Foraker, S., & McElree, B. (2007). The role of prominence in pronoun resolution: active versus passive representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 56, 357–83.Google Scholar
Friedmann, N., Aram, D., & Novogrodsky, R. (2011). Definitions as a window to the acquisition of relative clauses. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 687–710.Google Scholar
Friedmann, N., Belletti, A., & Rizzi, L. (2009). Relativized relatives: types of intervention in the acquisition of A-bar dependencies. Lingua, 119, 67–88.Google Scholar
Friedmann, N., & Novogrodsky, R. (2004). The acquisition of relative clause comprehension in Hebrew: a study of SLI and normal development. Journal of Child Language, 31, 661–81.Google Scholar
Fukumura, K., & van Gompel, R. P. G. (2012). Producing pronouns and definite noun phrases: Do speakers use the addressee's discourse model? Cognitive Science, 36(7), 1289–311.Google Scholar
Fukumura, K., & van Gompel, R. P. G. (2015). Effects of order of mention and grammatical role on anaphor resolution. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 501–25.Google Scholar
Fukumura, K., van Gompel, R. P. G., Harley, T., & Pickering, M. J. (2011). How does similarity-based interference affect the choice of referring expression? Journal of Memory and Language, 65, 331–44.Google Scholar
Fukumura, K., van Gompel, R. P. G., & Pickering, M. J. (2010). The use of visual context during the production of referring expressions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(9), 1700–15.Google Scholar
Grillo, N. (2009). Generalized minimality: feature impoverishment and comprehension deficits in agrammatism. Lingua, 119, 1426–43.Google Scholar
Grodner, D., Dalini, M., Pearlstein-Levy, S., & Ward, A. (2012). Factors that contribute to the use of perspective in referent identification. Paper presented at Annual City University of New York Conference on Human Sentence Processing.Google Scholar
Guenzberg-Kerbel, N., Shvimer, L., & Friedmann, N. (2008). “Kekhi et ha-tarnegolet she-ha-para nishka et ha-tarnegolet”: Havana ve-hafaka shel mishpetei zika mi-sugim shonim be-kerev yaldei gan dovrei ivrit [“Take the hen that the cow kissed the hen”: comprehension and production of various relative clause types in preschool Hebrew-speaking children]. Language and Brain, 7, 23–43.Google Scholar
Gundel, J. K., Hedberg, N., & Zacharski, R. (1993). Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69(2), 274–307.Google Scholar
Haendler, Y. (2017). Cross-linguistic evidence for effects of impersonal vs. referential pronouns in sentence processing. Poster presented at the 30th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, MIT (Cambridge, MA).Google Scholar
Haendler, Y., Kliegl, R., & Adani, F. (2015). Discourse accessibility constraints in children's processing of object relative clauses. Frontiers in Psychology, 6:860. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00860.Google Scholar
Hartshorne, J. K., Nappa, R., & Snedeker, J. (2015). Development of the first-mention bias. Journal of Child Language, 42, 423–46.Google Scholar
Hu, S., Gavarró, A., Vernice, M., & Guasti, M. T. (2016). The acquisition of Chinese relative clauses: contrasting two theoretical approaches. Journal of Child Language, 43, 1–21.Google Scholar
Hughes, M. E., & Allen, S. E. M. (2013). The effect of individual discourse-pragmatic features on referential choice in child English. Journal of Pragmatics, 56, 15–30.Google Scholar
Jaeger, T. F. (2008). Categorical data analysis: away from ANOVAs (transformation or not) and towards logit mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 434–46.Google Scholar
Keysar, B., Barr, D., Balin, J., & Bruauner, J. (2000). Taking perspective in conversation: the role of mutual knowledge in comprehension. Psychological Science, 11, 32–8.Google Scholar
Keysar, B., Lin, S., & Barr, D. (2003). Limits on theory of mind use in adults. Cognition, 89, 25–41.Google Scholar
Kidd, E., Brandt, S., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Object relatives made easy: a cross-linguistic comparison of the constraints influencing young children's processing of relative clauses. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22(6), 860–97.Google Scholar
Köder, F., & Maier, E. (2016). Children mix direct and indirect speech: evidence from pronoun comprehension. Journal of Child Language, 43, 843–66.Google Scholar
Lassotta, R., Adelt, A., Stadie, N., Burchert, F., & Adani, F. (2015). Testing relativized minimality with German relative clauses. Talk presented at the 12th Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition Conference, University of Nantes (France).Google Scholar
Legendre, G., & Smolensky, P. (2012). On the asymmetrical difficulty of acquiring person reference in French: production versus comprehension. Journal of Logic, Language and Information, 21, 7–30.Google Scholar
Mak, W. M., Vonk, W., & Schriefers, H. (2008). Discourse structure and relative clause processing. Memory & Cognition, 36(1), 170–81.Google Scholar
Matuschek, H., Kliegl, R., Vasishth, S., Baayen, H., & Bates, D. (2017). Balancing Type I error and power in linear mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language, 94, 305–15.Google Scholar
Meltzer-Asscher, A., Fadlon, J., Goldstein, K., & Holan, A. (2015). Direct object resumption in Hebrew: how modality of presentation and relative clause position affect acceptability. Lingua, 166, 65–79.Google Scholar
Novogrodsky, R., & Friedmann, N. (2006). The production of relative clauses in syntactic SLI: a window to the nature of the impairment. Advances in Language-Speech Pathology, 8, 364–75.Google Scholar
Reali, F., & Christiansen, M. H. (2007). Processing of relative clauses is made easier by frequency of occurrence. Journal of Memory and Language, 57, 1–23.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (2013). Locality. Lingua, 130, 169–86.Google Scholar
Roland, D., Mauner, G., O'Meara, C., & Yun, H. (2012). Discourse expectations and relative clause processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 66, 479–508.Google Scholar
Salazar Orvig, A., & Morgenstern, A. (2015). Acquisition and use of pronouns in a dialogic perspective. In Serratrice, L., & Allen, S. E. M. (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 155–80). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Sekerina, I. A. (2015). Online evidence for children's interpretation of personal pronouns. In Serratrice, L., & Allen, S. E. M. (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 213–40). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Serratrice, L. (2013). The role of number of referents and animacy in children's use of pronouns. Journal of Pragmatics, 56, 31–42.Google Scholar
Shlonsky, U. (1992). Resumptive pronouns as a last resort. Linguistic Inquiry, 23, 443–68.Google Scholar
Shlonsky, U. (2014). Referential third person null subjects in Hebrew. Brill's Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, 6, 27–44.Google Scholar
Song, H. J., & Fisher, C. (2005). Who's ‘she’? Discourse prominence influences preschoolers’ comprehension of pronouns. Journal of Memory and Language, 52, 29–57.Google Scholar
Vogels, J., Krahmer, E., & Maes, A. (2013). Who is where referred to how, and why? The influence of visual saliency on referent accessibility in spoken language production. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28, 1323–49.Google Scholar
Warren, T., & Gibson, E. (2002). The influence of referential processing on sentence complexity. Cognition, 85, 79–112.Google Scholar