Topicality-based vs. exposure-based preferences in pronoun resolution in French: Evidence from questionnaires and eye-movements

TitleTopicality-based vs. exposure-based preferences in pronoun resolution in French: Evidence from questionnaires and eye-movements
Publication TypeCommunication
Année de publication2016
Authorsde la Fuente, Israel, Sarah Schimke, Coralie Vincent, Barbara Hemforth, and Saveria Colonna
Titre de la conférenceArchitectures and Mechanisms of Human Language Processing
Date de publication09/2016
Abstract

It has been observed that in French sentences such as 'The facteur a appelé le pirate avant qu'il rentre à la maison' ('The postman called the pirate before he went home'), the N2 (the pirate) is strongly preferred as the antecedent of the ambiguous pronoun. This N2-preference in French has been explained by the fact that speakers take into account an alternative non-finite construction that is available in the language ('avant de rentrer à la maison', 'before going home') and that unambiguously refers to the N1. 
In a questionnaire and a Visual World eye-tracking experiment, we tested whether the explicit topicalization of the object by means of a passive construction ('Le pirate a été appelé par le facteur...') can change the N2-preference in favor of an N1-preference. Despite the fact that the non-finite construction is an unambiguous alternative for the active as well as the passive sentences, we observed a significant increase of N1-preferences in passive compared to active constructions in both the questionnaire (p<.0001) and the Visual World experiment (p<.01). These results suggest that pronoun interpretation preferences based on the frequency and availability of alternative constructions can be overridden when a referent is explicitly marked as the topic.