Saveria Colonna

This study investigates how native speakers and second language (L2) learners interpret pronominal forms in French, a non-pro-drop language, and Chinese, a topic-drop language. Focusing on null and overt pronouns, we examine how grammatical principles and discourse-level factors influence pronoun resolution in anaphoric and cataphoric constructions. Based on the Interface Hypothesis, we test whether L2 learners show more target-like interpretations in contexts governed by grammatical constraints than in contexts requiring the integration of grammar and discourse. Two offline experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 involved native speakers of French and Chinese L2 learners of French and examined the interpretation of null forms (PRO) in infinitival subordinate clauses versus overt pronouns in finite subordinate clauses. Both groups interpreted PRO as referring to subject antecedents. In contrast, learners differed from native speakers in the overt anaphora condition: while French native speakers preferred object interpretations, learners displayed less consistent patterns. In cataphoric null- and overt-pronoun contexts, native speakers and learners alike were guided by the Active Search Mechanism and preferred subject antecedents. Experiment 2 involved native speakers of Chinese and French learners of Chinese. As in Experiment 1, native and L2 speakers patterned alike in cataphoric contexts but differed in anaphoric conditions. French learners of Chinese interpreted anaphoric null and overt pronouns as referring to object antecedents more frequently than native speakers. Nevertheless, both groups were more likely to select subject antecedents with null pronouns than with overt pronouns. We propose that, under greater processing demands, L2 speakers may rely either on interpretive preferences transferred from their L1 or on more general heuristic principles, such as a recency preference.

This study investigates the reading of novel morpho-syntactic forms, specifically gender-inclusive writing in French. Inclusive writing aims to address the generic use of the masculine form, which often encourages male mental representations over female or non-binary ones. The study focuses on contracted forms using the mid-dot, such as étudiant·e·s , which have become widespread in French despite ongoing public debate. Four experiments using eye-tracking and self-paced reading methods compared reading times for inclusive, masculine, and feminine forms. Experiment 1 found no robust difference in reading times between inclusive forms ending in “·e” and their feminine counterparts, suggesting familiarity with this form. Experiment 2 showed that inclusive forms ending in “·ne”, such as comédien·ne·s , were read more slowly than their feminine counterparts, possibly due to phonological effects. Experiment 3 tested highly pronounceable inclusive forms like auteur·rice·s , which were read more slowly initially, but this effect was short-lasting. Experiment 4 compared more or less pronounceable forms, such as chanteur·euse·s and chanteur·se·s , respectively, confirming that the degree of pronounceability affects reading times. Overall, the study concluded that the reading time for contracted inclusive forms depends on familiarity and the degree of pronounceability.

Discourse processing requires the linking of different utterances to produce an integrated sequence that would form a coherent mental representation. The construction of such a representation is based on the ability to generate inferences guided by multiple sources of information from linguistic expressions, which serve as cohesion devices, to world knowledge. This chapter provides an overview of studies on the role of cohesion devices for the construction of a coherent representation of discourse in a second language (L2). The chapter will present L2 studies on the processing of markers of relational coherence and on the markers of cohesive reference. Finally, we will consider competing hypotheses proposed to explain the difficulties that L2 speakers encounter in processing discourse.

On the basis of corpus and experimental evidence, this paper claims that the ongoing process of change affecting the use and interpretation of the [Present under Past] pattern in subjunctive argument clauses in some Spanish varieties is sensitive to the syntactic/semantic type of the clause. The pattern deviates from Sequence-of-Tense grammar in not giving rise to double access effects. In the variety explored in this paper, this only happens in the argument clauses of causative, directive, and volitional predicates, i.e. in a type of clause which is held to be lower in a scale of clausehood than the argument clauses of predicates of belief and assertion.@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-parent:"";margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;}div.Section1{page:Section1;}

Cet article présente une étude expérimentale pilote réalisée afin d’observer s’il est possible d’amorcer la féminisation des noms de rôles chez des enfants âgé·es de 4 à 6 ans. Le type d’amorce était manipulé. Les amorces étaient des noms féminins de rôles introduits dans des histoires lues aux enfants : il s’agissait soit de noms féminins connus des enfants (comme une princesse), soit de noms féminins rares (voire encore jamais rencontrés par les enfants, comme une capitainesse), soit de noms épicènes (comme une vétérinaire). Les cibles étaient des personnages féminins que les enfants devaient dénommer à partir d’illustration. Les résultats montrent que bien que les enfants utilisent majoritairement des formes masculines pour désigner des personnages féminins, le nombre de formes féminines produites augmente néanmoins à mesure que l’expérience progresse. Il est donc possible d’amorcer la production de formes féminines : plus les enfants sont exposé·es à des formes féminines et plus iels sont susceptibles d’en produire.

The present study investigated pronoun resolution strategies in French native speakers and in German-speaking learners of French. French and German differ in antecedent preferences in ambiguous constructions such asThe postman hit the pirate before he went home: while French shows a N2-preference, German shows a N1-preference. This difference is explained by effects of exposure to an unambiguous alternative construction referring to N1 that exists in French, but not in German (Hemforth et al. 2010, Language specific preferences in anaphor resolution: Exposure or gricean maxims? In Steallan Ohlsson and Richard Catarambone (eds.),32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 2218–2223. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society). In questionnaires, we tested French active and passive sentences to investigate (a) whether the L2-learners would apply the same strategy as natives in the active condition (i.e. N2-preference), and (b) whether the explicit topicalization of a referent as a consequence of passivization influences interpretation preferences in both groups (resulting in more N1 choices). The results show that German learners prefer the N1 more often than the French natives in the active condition. Crucially, the number of N1 choices increased in both groups in the passive condition. These results suggest that L2-learners might have difficulties acquiring strategies based on the frequency and availability of alternative constructions in the L2, and provide further evidence for the importance of information-structure-based strategies in L1 and L2 pronoun resolution.

It is widely assumed that focused entities are more salient than non-focused ones and consequently, that an antecedent should be particularly available for a pronoun when it is foregrounded in a cleft construction. Contrary to this assumption, however, some studies observed that an antecedent focused by a cleft was less accessible than a non-focused one. We claim that the influence of clefting depends on the position of the ambiguous pronoun: clefted antecedents are only preferred as antecedents of a pronoun when the pronoun and its antecedent are in different discourse units. In order to test this hypothesis, we conducted a questionnaire and a visual world experiment in German in which we manipulated inter- vs. intra-sentential pronoun resolution. Results showed that clefting had different effects depending on the position of the pronoun. We will discuss why these results are consistent with the claim that pronouns preferentially co-refer with the sentence topic.

We report three experiments on French that explore number mismatch effects in intervention configurations in the comprehension of object A’-dependencies, relative clauses and questions. The study capitalizes on the finding of object attraction in sentence production, in which speakers sometimes erroneously produce a verb that agrees in number with a plural object in object relative clauses. Evidence points to the role of three critical constructs from formal syntax: intervention, intermediate traces and c-command (Franck et al., 2010). Experiment 1, using a self-paced reading procedure on these grammatical structures, shows the enhancing effect of number mismatch in intervention configurations, with faster reading times with plural (mismatching) objects. Experiment 2, using an on-line grammaticality judgment task on the ungrammatical versions of these structures, shows an interference effect in the form of attraction, with slower response times with plural objects. Experiment 3 with a similar grammaticality judgment task shows stronger attraction from c-commanding than from preceding interveners. Overall, the data suggest that syntactic computations in performance refer to the same syntactic representations in production and comprehension, but that different tasks tap into different processes involved in parsing: whereas performance in self-paced reading reflects the intervention of the subject in the process of building an object A’-dependency, performance in grammaticality judgment reflects intervention of the object on the computation of the subject-verb agreement dependency. The latter shows the hallmarks of structure-dependent attraction effects in sentence production, in particular, a sensitivity to specific characteristics of hierarchical representations.

A challenge for psycholinguistics is to describe how linguistic cues influence the construction of the mental representation resulting from the comprehension of a text. In this paper, we will focus on one of these linguistic devices: the sentence-initial positioning of spatial adverbials such as In the park.... Three self-paced reading experiments were conducted to test the ‘Discourse Framing Hypothesis’ according to which preposed adverbials can be seen as frame builders announcing that incoming contents satisfy the same informational criterion specified by the adverbial. Our results indicate that spatial adverbials do not play the same role when they are in sentence-initial and in sentence-final position. These results are discussed in the framework of Zwaan’s Event Indexing Model.