Syntactic Memory in the Comprehension of Reflexive Dependencies

An Overview

Bibliographic Data

ID4931553
AuthorsBronwyn Dillon (0009-0001-3574-3889, corresponding author), Brian Dillon (0000-0002-4290-2120)
Year2014
Volume8
Issue5
Pages171-187
Publication date2014-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage and Linguistics Compass (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-818X • E-ISSN: 1749-818X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/lnc3.12075
OpenAlexW1910412211
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited61

The distribution of reflexive anaphors has long been of central importance in the development of syntactic theory. In a parallel fashion, research on the comprehension of reflexive anaphors is increasingly influential for theories of syntactic comprehension. In this article, I present the problem of selecting a reflexive's antecedent as a memory retrieval problem and illustrate why the comprehension of reflexives is of special interest for theories of the memory architecture of the sentence processor. I review a range of influential findings on reflexive comprehension, focusing on results that concern the speed and grammatical accuracy of antecedent retrieval. An emerging empirical generalization is that reflexives are relatively immune to retrieval interference, a property that sets them apart from superficially similar syntactic dependencies like subject-verb agreement. Existing data, across languages and across methodologies, suggest that comprehenders retrieve a reflexive's antecedent primarily on the basis of its syntactic position

Comprehension · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Reflexivity · Sentence · Sociology · Verb · Computer Science · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Artificial Intelligence