Anaphoric Inference in Expository Text: The Effects of Anaphora Type, Mention Order and Typicality of Antecedent
Anaphoric Inference in Expository Text: The Effects of Anaphora Type, Mention Order and Typicality of Antecedent Jae-Ho Lee (leejaeho@kmu.ac.kr) Department of Psychology, Keimyung University 1000 Sindang-Dong Dalseo-Ku, Daegu, Korea pronoun have strong effect for antecedent access. This also suggested that a singular pronoun was more sensitive in text contexts rather than a plural pronoun. Introduction Anaphora has an important function in text comprehension. The processes of anaphoric inference are to make local coherence among sentences. The coherence constructed from several variables (e.g. Lee, 1993). The first variable is an anaphora type: noun phrase, pronoun or ellipsis. Another variable is the properties of antecedents: syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic. Yet another variable is discourse contexts such as a topic, theme, or implicit reader’s knowledge. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how these variables contribute to anaphoric inference differentially in expository texts. Figure 2: Mean Recognition Time in Exp. 2 (ms) Typical Atypical Pronoun ------------------------ Type First Second First Second Plural Singular General Discussion This study suggested that an anaphora type have a different function for anaphoric inference. A noun phrase presented for not focused antecedent or for new topic. If the noun phrase occurred in text, the noun phrase enhanced an activation level of antecedent. In pronoun, the previous activation level will be maintained (e.g. Gernsbacher, 1989). But two type of pronoun differed: A singular pronoun was more influenced by a focus or saliency of antecedents than a plural pronoun. The constraints dynamically coordinate for an optimal coherence in anaphoric inference (Kim, Lee, & Gernsbacher, 2004). And the coherence seems to be constructed gradually(e.g. Sanford & Garrod, 1989). Experiment 1: Noun Phrase vs. Pronoun Experiment 1 explored the effect of anaphora type with antecedent mention order and antecedent typicality. The interaction of anaphora type and mention order of antecedents expected. 67 undergraduate students are participating in the experiment. The results showed that the antecedents of the noun phrase were faster than that of the pronoun. The variables of the mention order and antecedent typicality more influenced to pronoun than noun phrase (see Figure 1). Experiment 1 showed that two types of anaphor have a very different processing mechanism in anaphoric inference. Acknowledgments Authors Note: I thank Soyoung Suh-Kim for many helpful discussions and comments on a draft of this article. Figure 1: Mean Recognition Time in Exp. 1 (ms) Typical Atypical Anaphoric ------------------------ Type First Second First Second Noun Phrase 684 Pronoun References Gernsbacher, M. A. (1989). Mechanisms that improve referential access. Cognition, 32, 99-156. Kim, S. I., Lee, J-H., & Gernsbacher, M. A. (2004). The advantage of first mention in Korean: The temporal contributions of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic Factors. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 33. 475- Lee, J-H. (1993). On-line processing of pronoun resolution in reading. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Korea University, Seoul. Lee, J-H. (2004). The role of syntactic cues in pronoun referential resolution: The effects of number and gender cue. The Korean Journal of Cognitive Science, 15, 27- Sanford, A. J., & Garrod, S. E. (1989). What, when, and how?: Questions of immediacy in anaphoric reference resolution. Language and Cognitive Processes, 4, 235- Experiment 2: Plural pronoun vs. Singular pronoun Experiment 2 manipulated pronoun type with antecedent typicality and antecedent mention order. The manipulation of pronoun type will provide an additional evidence for the effect of anaphora type. 67 undergraduate students are participated in Experiment 2. The main effect of pronoun type was observed. The antecedents of the singular pronoun were faster than that of the plural pronoun. This result was replicated Lee’s (2004). And the effect of mention order was more influenced in singular pronoun than in plural pronouns. The effect of the antecedent typicality did not differ between singular pronoun and plural pronoun (see Figure 2). The results suggest that a syntactic cue of