On-line resolution of anaphoric pronouns

Effects of inference making and verb semantics

Bibliographic Data

ID5266733
AuthorsAlan Garnham (0000-0002-0058-403X, University of Sussex, corresponding author), Jane Oakhill (0000-0001-8810-3714, University of Sussex, corresponding author)
Year1985
Volume76
Issue3
Pages385-393
Publication date1985-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1269 • E-ISSN: 2044-8295
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.2044-8295.1985.tb01961.x
OpenAlexW2070550057
LanguageEN
Citations received48

An experiment is reported in which sentences containing anaphoric pronouns were presented for self-paced reading. Some of the pronouns could be resolved on the basis of their gender alone, others required inferences based on knowledge about the world. Subjects spent longer reading the second clause of a sentence when an inference was required to resolve the pronoun, suggesting that the pronouns were resolved as they were read. Resolution was not delayed until it was required by the experimental task of answering a question. The data were also pertinent to the question of whether verb semantics enables a reader to predict subsequent pronominalization. It was found that any such prediction only facilitated reading when the pronoun could be resolved on the basis of syntactic information

Inference · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Object pronoun · Personal pronoun · Pronoun · Reading (process) · Semantics (computer science) · Sentence · Verb · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning

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