Syntactic Memory in the Comprehension of Reflexive Dependencies

An Overview

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4931553
AutoresBronwyn Dillon (0009-0001-3574-3889, autor de correspondencia), Brian Dillon (0000-0002-4290-2120)
Año2014
Volumen8
Número5
Páginas171-187
Fecha de publicación2014-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLanguage and Linguistics Compass (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1749-818X • E-ISSN: 1749-818X
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/lnc3.12075
OpenAlexW1910412211
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas61

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