@article {6669, title = {The Effect of Semantic and Discourse Features on the Use of Null and Overt Subjects - A Quantitative Study of Third Person Subjects in Brazilian Portuguese. }, journal = {DELTA: Documenta{\c c}{\~a}o de Estudos em Ling{\"u}{\'\i}stica Te{\'o}rica e Aplicada,}, volume = {36}, year = {2020}, doi = {https://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1678-460x2020360107}, author = {Eduardo Correa Soares and Philip Miller and Barbara Hemforth} } @article {6475, title = {Empathy influences how listeners interpret intonation and meaning when words are ambiguous}, journal = {Memory and Cognition}, year = {2020}, doi = {10.3758/s13421-019-00990-w}, author = {Nuria Gibert Esteve and Shafer, Amy and Barbara Hemforth and Cristel Portes and Pozniak, Celine and D{\textquoteright}Imperio, Mariapaola} } @article {6668, title = {Extraction from subjects: Differences in acceptability depend on the discourse function of the construction}, journal = {Cognition}, year = {2020}, abstract = {

In order to explain the unacceptability of certain long-distance dependencies - termed syntactic islands by Ross (1967) - syntacticians proposed constraints on long-distance dependencies which are universal and purely syntactic and thus not dependent on the meaning of the construction (Chomsky, 1977; Chomsky, 1995 a.o.). This predicts that these constraints should hold across constructions and languages. In this paper, we investigate the \"subject island\" constraint across constructions in English and French, a constraint that blocks extraction out of subjects. In particular, we compare extraction out of nominal subjects with extraction out of nominal objects, in relative clauses and wh-questions, using similar materials across constructions and languages. Contrary to the syntactic accounts, we find that unacceptable extractions from subjects involve (a) extraction in wh-questions (in both languages); or (b) preposition stranding (in English). But the extraction of a whole prepositional phrase from subjects in a relative clause, in both languages, is as good or better than a similar extraction from objects. Following Erteschik-Shir (1973) and Kuno (1987) among others, we propose a theory that takes into account the discourse status of the extracted element in the construction at hand: the extracted element is a focus (corresponding to new information) in wh-questions, but not in relative clauses. The focus status conflicts with the non-focal status of a subject (usually given or discourse-old). These results suggest that most previous discussions of islands may rely on the wrong premise that all extraction types behave alike. Once different extraction types are recognized as different constructions (Croft, 2001; Ginzburg \& Sag, 2000; Goldberg, 2006; Sag, 2010), with their own discourse functions, one can explain different extraction patterns depending on the construction.

}, doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104293}, author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie and Gibson, Edward} } @article {6409, title = {The effect of verbal agreement marking on the use of null and overt subjects: a quantitative study of first person singular in Brazilian Portuguese}, journal = {F{\'o}rum Lingu{\'\i}stico}, volume = {16}, year = {2019}, pages = {3579-3600}, chapter = {3579}, abstract = {

In a corpus study and two acceptability experiments, we investigated whether there is a preference for null or overt subjects with ambiguous (syncretic) and exclusive (unambiguous) verbs in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Previous literature has proposed that BP (i) is deactivating the \“Avoid Pronoun Principle\” and (ii) is a partially pro-drop language, whose morphosyntactic contexts for null subjects are restricted. The corpus study and the acceptability experiments show that there is an effect of person syncretism in the verbal paradigm on the relative frequency of null subjects and on the acceptability of sentences with null subjects in the first-person singular: there is a tendency to avoid ambiguity due to null subjects with ambiguous verb forms, but only in contexts with competing antecedents. These results are analyzed in the light of a general theory of anaphora resolution (ARIEL, 1990, etc.), as resulting from a calculation taking into account the accessibility of potential antecedents and the cost of the anaphoric form (ALMOR, 1996).

}, issn = {ISSNe 1984-8412}, doi = { }, url = {https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/forum/article/view/1984-8412.2019v16n1p3579}, author = {Eduardo Correa Soares and Philip Miller and Barbara Hemforth} } @article {5851, title = {Effects of exposure and information structure in native and non-native pronoun resolution in French.}, journal = {Linguistic Vanguard}, year = {2018}, month = {2018-03-09}, abstract = {

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 as The 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 question- naires, 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 (result- ing 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 fre- quency 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.

}, doi = { https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2016-0093}, author = {Colonna, Saveria and Schimke, Sarah and Israel de la Fuente and Sascha Kuck and Barbara Hemforth} } @conference {4713, title = {Ellipsis with garden-path antecedents in French}, year = {2016}, month = {03/2016}, abstract = {

Ellipsis with garden-path antecedents in French

Dario Paape, Shravan Vasishth (Univ. of Potsdam) \& Barbara Hemforth (Univ. Paris Diderot)

paape@uni-potsdam.de

Ellipsis is typically anaphoric, and its interpretation requires access to a suitable antecedent. Adopting the framework of cue-based retrieval parsing (Lewis \& Vasishth, 2005), Paape (2015) suggests that the syntactic structures of ellipsis antecedents are stored in working memory as chunks whose activation levels fluctuate over time. Cue-based retrieval parsing predicts that manipulating memory chunks increases their activation, making them easier to retrieve.

It should be possible to boost the activation of a stored antecedent through syntactic reanalysis, which changes the structure of the chunk and thereby \&$\#$39;refreshes\&$\#$39; its memory trace. In a self-paced reading study on German sluicing, Paape (2015) found that antecedents that had been reanalyzed (i.e., garden-path antecedents) led to reduced reading times at the ellipsis site, indicating facilitated retrieval and thus supporting the reactivation hypothesis.

In the current study, we attempted to replicate Paape\&$\#$39;s (2015) finding using eye-tracking, which more closely resembles natural reading. We tested French sentences containing sluicing constructions with temporarily ambiguous antecedents, as shown below.

Our design used a sequence of three lexically ambiguous words. Here, the word sale is ambiguous between the third person singular form of saler, \&$\#$39;to salt\&$\#$39;, and the adjective \&$\#$39;filthy\&$\#$39;. The word les is either a plural-marked definite article or an object pronoun. Finally, tranche could be a singular noun (\&$\#$39;slice\&$\#$39;), but would need an -s suffix to be compatible with the would-be article les to yield the reading \&$\#$39;The butcher/s salt/s the slices\&$\#$39;. The word tranche is thus the point of disambiguation in the ambiguous conditions, where no other morphological markers signal the correct parse. In a pretest, acceptability ratings were lower for ambiguous antecedent clauses than for unambiguous ones, which we took to indicate a garden-path effect. The main experiment used a 2\×2 design with the factors ambiguity (yes/no) and ellipsis (yes/no). The two control conditions used non-ellipsis anaphors (en, \&$\#$39;of it\&$\#$39;, in the above example). According to the reactivation hypothesis, processing at the ellipsis site (quand, \&$\#$39;when\&$\#$39;) should be less difficult in the ambiguous condition, where the antecedent has to be reanalyzed at tranche, \&$\#$39;cut\&$\#$39;.

At the sluicing site, antecedent ambiguity led to higher total reading times (t = 3.2) and marginally higher regression path durations (t = 1.9) only for ellipsis sentences, contrary to what the reactivation hypothesis predicted. This pattern was not observed in the region right before the ellipsis, excluding differential processing spillover as an explanation. An analysis of fixations made after the ellipsis site had been fixated revealed an effect of ambiguity on re-reading times for the antecedent region (t = 2.2), as well as higher re-reading probabilities for the initial noun phrase (z = 2.6) and the adjective (z = 2.3) in the ambiguous/ellipsis condition only.

Our study yielded no evidence for a reactivation advantage due to reanalysis. The increased re-reading time on the antecedent suggests that subjects did not always resolve the ambiguity in the initial clause - a type of good-enough processing (e.g. Ferreira \& Patson, 2007). On such trials, no fully interpreted antecedent will be available upon encountering the ellipsis site, leading to processing difficulty and re-reading of the antecedent clause.\ 

}, author = {Paape, Dario and Vasishth, Shravan and Barbara Hemforth} } @conference {4719, title = {Ellipsis with garden-path antecedents in French}, year = {2016}, month = {09/2016}, abstract = {

In a self-paced reading study on German sluicing, Paape (2015) found that antecedents that had been reanalyzed (i.e., garden-path antecedents) led to reduced reading times at the ellipsis site. Adopting the parsing framework of Lewis \& Vasishth (2005), Paape suggests that ellipsis antecedents are stored in working memory as chunks. Reanalysis increases a chunk\&$\#$39;s activation level, making it easier to retrieve.\ 
We attempted to replicate Paape\&$\#$39;s (2015) finding using eye-tracking. The experiment used French sentences in a 2\×2 design with the factors antecedent ambiguity (yes/no) and ellipsis (yes/no). If reactivation takes place, ellipsis should be less difficult to process in the ambiguous condition, where the antecedent has been reanalyzed.\ 
At the sluicing site, antecedent ambiguity led to higher total reading times and marginally higher regression path durations only for ellipsis sentences, contrary to what reactivation would predict. An analysis of fixations made after the ellipsis site had been fixated also revealed that subjects re-read the antecedent more often in the ambiguous conditions.\ 
We found no evidence of a reactivation advantage due to reanalysis. Instead, our results suggest that subjects did not always resolve the ambiguity in the initial clause - a type of good-enough processing (e.g. Ferreira \& Patson, 2007).

}, author = {Paape, Dario and Barbara Hemforth and Vasishth, Shravan} } @conference {4442, title = { Effects of context on the processing of adversative and comparative constructions}, year = {2014}, address = {Columbus, Ohio, EU}, doi = {10.13140/RG.2.1.1099.1520}, author = {Gr{\'e}goire Winterstein and Emilia Ellsiepen and Jacques Jayez and Barbara Hemforth} } @inproceedings {4452, title = { Effects of clefting and left-dislocation on Subject and Object Pronoun Resolution in Spanish}, year = {2013}, month = {10/2013}, publisher = {Cascadilla Proceedings Project}, address = {Florida}, abstract = {

The present study investigates the role of two syntactic constructions affecting the discourse status of antecedents (left-dislocation and clefting) in the intra-sentential resolution of ambiguous null subject and object clitic pronouns in Spanish. The results of two offline questionnaires show that pronoun interpretation changes significantly from a canonical construction as a result of the experimental manipulations of the discourse status of the antecedents. Crucially, however, the two syntactic constructions investigated do not have the same effect on participants\&$\#$39; preferences: while there was a general preference for left-dislocated antecedents, participants dispreferred clefted antecedents at least intra-sententially, a pattern that has also been attested for subject pronoun resolution in French and German (Colonna et al., 2012). The differences between left-dislocation and clefting have been argued to be a consequence of a preference for topic continuity. It is suggested that the semantic and syntactic structure of clefts may provide a better explanation for our observations. A third questionnaire investigated experimental context effects on the resolution of null and overt subject pronouns.

}, url = {http://www.lingref.com/cpp/hls/16/paper2923.pdf}, author = {Israel de la Fuente and Barbara Hemforth} } @conference {4457, title = {Expectations matter when resolving pronouns in explanations and temporal clauses: The differences between even and only}, year = {2013}, month = {09/2013}, address = {Marseille}, doi = {10.13140/RG.2.1.1794.8323}, author = {Israel de la Fuente and Barbara Hemforth} } @inbook {4461, title = {Experimental Linguistics}, booktitle = {Oxford Online Bibliographies}, year = {2013}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, organization = {Oxford University Press}, edition = {Mark Aronoff}, address = {New York}, doi = {10.1093/OBO/9780199772810-0112}, author = {Barbara Hemforth} }