In this paper I propose a unified account of two phenomena that have so far only been treated independently of each other: (I.) the strong tendency of German demonstrative pronouns (henceforth: D-pronouns or DEM) like der and die to be resolved to antecedents that have not been maximally salient in the preceding sentence, and (II.) the fact that D-pronouns cannot be interpreted as syntactically...

this study explores the person/number suffixes in laki in a descriptive-analytic method. having a broad distribution, these suffixes can attach to subject and object nps, prepositions, and verbs. by considering the uniform syntactic behavior of subjects of transitive and intransitive predicates and it’s contrast with the behavior of objects of transitive predicates, the authors show that these ...

The choice and processing of referential expressions depend on the referents' status within the discourse, such that pronouns are generally preferred over full repetitive references when the referent is salient. Here we report two visual-world experiments showing that: (1) in spoken language comprehension, this preference is reflected in delayed fixations to referents mentioned after repeated d...

This paper investigates the use of sentential pronouns in English and Norwegian. We argue that resolution of sentential pronouns is sensitive to the distinction between forms whose referents must be in focus and forms whose referents must only be activated, but not necessarily in focus. An investigation of the distribution and interpretation of sentential pronouns also reveals that the relative...

Every day, we primarily experience actions as agents, by having a concrete perspective on our actions, their means and goals. This peculiar perspective is what allows us to successfully plan and execute our actions in a dense social environment. Nevertheless, in this environment actions are also perceived from an observer's perspective. Adopting such a perspective helps us to understand and res...

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Recent studies in both artificial intelligence and linguistics have demonstrated the need for a theory of the comprehension of anaphoric expressions, a theory that accounts for the role of syntactic and semantic effects, as well as inferential knowledge in explaining how anaphors are understood. In this paper a new approach, based on a theory of the process of focusing on parts of the discourse...

The effect of personal pronouns such as "ein" (German for "a"), "mein" (German for "my") and "sein" (German for "his") on the processing of associated nouns was investigated using MEG. Three different encoding strategies were provided in order to vary the level of consciousness involved in verbal information processing. A shallow (alphabetic), a deep (semantic) and a very deep (contextual) enco...