Child-Adult parallels in the interpretation of anaphora

1. Child-Adult parallels in the interpretation of anaphora

2. 5 Child-Adult Parallels Children Adults Principle C • Principle C

3. Principle C in Children ok While Pooh was reading the book he ate the apple. ok Pooh ate the apple while he was reading the book. ok While he was reading the book, Pooh ate the apple. * He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book. Robust finding in children ages 3+ years Crain & McKee 1985 (English) Crain & Thornton 1998 (English) Guasti & Chierchia 1999 (Italian) Kazanina & Phillips 2001 (Russian) Leddon & Lidz 2005 (English) etc. (from Kazanina & Phillips, 2001)

4. Immediate Constraint Application Self-Paced Reading, Gender Mismatch Paradigm Jessica …Russell … While she … While she was taking classes full-time, Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills. While she was taking classes full-time, Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills. while Jessica …while Russell … She … She was taking classes full-time while Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills. She was taking classes full-time while Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills. (Kazanina et al., 2007, J. Mem. Lang.)

5. Results GME at the 2nd NP in non-PrC pair NO GME at the 2nd NP in PrC pair while while Jessica Russell Condition C – immediate (Kazanina et al., 2007, J. Mem. Lang.)

6. 5 Child-Adult Parallels Children Adults Principle C: robust • Principle C: robust

7. Principle A in Children • “John said that Tom washed himself” • Children are rather good at the locality restriction on English reflexives(Wexler & Chien 1985, Zukowski & McKeown 2008ab, etc., etc.)

8. Principle A as a constraint on generation • Nicol (1988), Nicol & Swinney (1989): cross-modal priming study in which subjects had to make a lexical decision to a visually presented word while listening to sentences • The boxer told the skier that the doctor for the team would blame himself for the recent injury. punch – no effectslope – no effectnurse - facilitation

9. Sturt 2003 Experiment 1 Accessible-mismatch/Inaccessible-mismatch Jonathan was pretty worried at the City Hospital. He remembered that the surgeon had pricked herself with a used syringe needle. There should be an investigation soon. Accessible-mismatch/Inaccessible-match Jennifer was pretty worried at the City Hospital. She remembered that the surgeon had pricked herself with a used syringe needle. There should be an investigation soon.

10. The hippopotamus yawned. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 First fixation 2 First pass 2 + 3 all fixations before exiting region Regression path 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 all fixations before exiting region to right Second pass 7 all fixations after first exiting to right

11. Experiment 1 - Early processing: first-pass at reflexive region

12. Experiment 1 - Later processing: Second-pass at pre-final region

13. Experiment 1 - Later processing: second pass RT at reflexive region

14. Sturt 2003

15. Sturt 2003 Experiment 2 Accessible-mismatch/Inaccessible-match Jonathan was pretty worried at the City Hospital. The surgeon [RC who treated Jonathan] had pricked herself with a used syringe needle. There should be an investigation soon. Accessible-mismatch/Inaccessible-mismatch Jennifer was pretty worried at the City Hospital. The surgeon [RC who treated Jennifer] had pricked herself with a used syringe needle. There should be an investigation soon. Replicated effects of structurally accessible antecedent No effects of structurally inaccessible antecedent

16. Electrophysiology of Sentence Comprehension N400 • Semantic anomaly I drink my coffee with cream and sugar I drink my coffee with cream and socks N400 Kutas & Hillyard (1980)

17. Morpho-Syntactic violations Every Monday he mows the lawn. Every Monday he *mow the lawn. The plane brought us to paradise. The plane brought *we to paradise. (Coulson et al., 1998) (Slide from Kaan (2001)

18. P600 he mows he *mow (Slide from Kaan (2001)

19. Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) P600 he mows he *mow (Slide from Kaan (2001)

20. The elementary-school teacher that Sophie liked very much scolded herself … The elementary-school teacher that Bernard liked very much scolded himself … The elementary-school teacher that Sophie liked very much scolded himself … (Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2008)

21. Reflexives P600 response to violation No intrusion effect (Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2008)

22. Principle A as a late filter • Badecker & Straub (2002) • Jane thought that Bill owed himself another opportunity to solve the problem. • John thought that Bill owed himself another opportunity to solve the problem. • The two conditions are different only in the gender of the inaccessible antecedent of himself; yet reading times at the two words following himself were faster in (a) than in (b) => binding constraints did not immediately rule out binding-inaccessible positions from the consideration.

23. Experiment 4

24. Experiment 5 No multiple-match effect Experiment 6 No multiple-match effect

25. Principle A in Adults • Various tests of on-line sensitivity to only correct antecedents, e.g. • The elementary-school teacher that Sophie liked very much scolded herself … • The elementary-school teacher that Sophie liked very much scolded himself … • The elementary-school teacher that Bernard liked very much scolded himself … • Immediate sensitivity only to grammatically appropriate subject (eye-tracking: Sturt 2003; ERPs: Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2009; CMLD: Nicol & Swinney 1989; etc.) • Unremarkable … until set against other cases of sensitivity to irrelevant NPs • NPI illusions: *The bills [that no senators voted for] will ever become law.(Vasishth et al. 2008; Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2009) • Agreement illusions: *The runners [who the driver see each morning] always wave.(Wagers, Lau, & Phillips, in press; Pearlmutter et al., 1999)

26. 5 Child-Adult Parallels Children Adults Principle C: robust Principle A: robust • Principle C: robust • Principle A: robust

27. Principle B in Children • 30+ studies using a wide range of techniques • Possible to show that 4-5 year olds can apply the constraint,for referential & quantificational antecedents • But there’s no question that learners ofEnglish-type languages can access the illicitinterpretation, and have difficulty blocking it • The experimental record is very mixed • Principle B applies as a filter “Grumpy painted him”

28. Principle B in Adults John thought that Bill owed him another chance to solve the problem. John thought that Beth owed him another chance to solve the problem. (Badecker & Straub, 2002) Results are Mixed Immediate effects Nicol & Swinney 1989 Clifton et al. 1997 Lee & Williams 2006 Delayed effects Badecker & Straub 2002 Runner et al. 2003 Sturt et al. 2005 Kennison 2003 Badecker & Straub 2002

29. Principle B as a constraint on generation • Nicol (1988), Nicol & Swinney (1989): cross-modal priming study in which subjects had to make a lexical decision to a visually presented word while listening to sentences • The boxer told the skier that the doctor for the team would blame him for the recent injury. punch – facilitationslope – facilitationnurse - no effect

30. Principle B as a constraint on generation • Clifton, Kennison & Albrecht (1997): self-paced reading task. The supervisor(s) is a binding-accessible antecedent for his in (c-d) (but there is a number-match only in (d)), but not for him in (a-b). • The supervisors paid him yesterday to finish typing the manuscript. • The supervisor paid him yesterday to finish typing the manuscript. • The supervisors paid his assistant yesterday to finish typing the manuscript. • The supervisor paid his assistant yesterday to finish typing the manuscript. • A number mismatch/match effect found in (c) vs. (d), but not in (a) vs. (b) => support for PrB as a constraint on generation slow fast

31. But … (Kennison, 2003)

32. “The results indicated that when a single highly salient, structurally available antecedent was available in the context, the coreference resolution […] was not affected by the structurally unavailable subject.” (p. 348) (Kennison, 2003)

33. Lee & Williams (2006) Self-paced reading results (1 word after pronoun) show effect of gender stereotype of structurally accessible antecedent (i.e., main clause subject, but no effect of the structurally inaccessible embedded clause subject.

34. 5 Child-Adult Parallels Children Adults Principle C: robust Principle A: robust Principle B: fragile • Principle C: robust • Principle A: robust • Principle B: fragile

35. How are the illicit interpretations made available in the Principle B studies?

37. Immediate Constraint Application Self-Paced Reading, Gender Mismatch Paradigm Jessica …Russell … While she … While she was taking classes full-time, Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills. While she was taking classes full-time, Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills. while Jessica …while Russell … She … She was taking classes full-time while Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills. She was taking classes full-time while Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills. (Kazanina et al., 2007, J. Mem. Lang.)

38. Backwards Anaphora in Russian Adults • Russian adults reliably judge violations of both constraints as quite bad • Principle C: *She looked through the scripts while Marina prepared … • Poka-constraint: *While she looked through the scripts, Marina prepared … • In self-paced reading study, the two constraints show contrasting profiles • Principle C: no effect of gender match at critical subject NP • Poka-constraint: gender match effect shortly after critical subject NP • Implies that coreference is briefly considered in the poka-sentences, but ultimately rejectedRussian adults briefly consider interpretations that children settle upon (Kazanina & Phillips, submitted)

39. Results: no-constraint condition GMME F1(1,39)=4.16, p<.05F2(1,11)=3.36, p<.07 Dep. Elem. Acc. Ant. Acc. Ant. GMME after the 2nd subject; similar to the English no-constraint condition

40. Results: Pr.C-conditions  n.s.Fs<2.7, ps>.1 Acc. Ant. Dep. Elem. Inacc. AntPrinciple C No effect at/after 2nd subject; replicates the English Principle C condition

41. Results: Poka-conditions GME F1(1,39)=5.36, p<.05F2(1,23)=4.66, p<.05 Acc. Ant. Dep. Elem. Inacc. Antpoka-constraint GME after the 2nd subject

42. 5 Child-Adult Parallels Children Adults Principle C: robust Principle A: robust Principle B: fragile Russian poka: over-generate • Principle C: robust • Principle A: robust • Principle B: fragile • Russian poka: over-generate

43. Reconstruction in Children & Adults Children: Leddon & Lidz, 2005 (BU conf.) Adults: Omaki, Dyer, Malhotra, Sprouse, Lidz, & Phillips, 2007 (CUNY conf.)

50. Adult on-line data (Omaki et al. 2007) GMME GMME