ANAPHORA PROCESSING: THE FOCI OF IT AND THIS
Derya Çokal-Karadaş1, 2, Patrick Sturt2, Şűkriye Ruhi 1and Fernanda Ferreira3
1
Middle East Techical University, 2University of Edinburgh, 3University of South Carolina
contact: [email protected] Within a variety of theories and paradigms, some linguists have handled the anaphoric
expressions it and this as oppositional, referring to different entities (i.e. this refers to a
proposition whereas it refers to a noun phrase) and establishing different foci/attentional
states (i.e. it signals topic continuation and this signals topic shift) (4, 8, 11, 12, 15). For
others, however, it and this are indistinguishable with respect to the antecedent preferences
and the foci they establish (1, 9, 10). Existing psycholinguistic studies focus on comparisons
of the deictic that and the anaphoric pronoun it, or on comparing deictic expressions with the
use of personal pronouns in German or French (2, 3, 7). The cognitive functions of these
expressions in establishing coherence and in shifting foci in text processing, however, have
not been explored with online methods. This study differs in terms of the anaphoric
expressions we handle, our focus on textual deixis, and our use of both eye-tracking reading
experiments and norming experiments.
Here we report 3 eye-tracking experiments and 3 norming experiments designed to test the
antecedent preferences of it and this and the foci they establish. Eye-tracking Experiment 1
(40 participants; 40 items) compared how it and this refer to the proposition and the noun
phrase in the preamble. Preferences were measured by referential expressions after the
adjective following it and this. In norming Experiment 1, (16 participants; 40 items), blanks
replaced the words following it/this and participants were asked to complete the sentences.
Eye-tracking Experiment 2 (40 participants; 40 items) compared how it and this refer to two
noun statuses (i.e. subject/NP1 and object/NP2). Preferences were measured by
mismatching/matching referential expressions with the features of noun phrases. In norming
Experiment 2 (16 participants; 40 items), we used the same stimuli as in Experiment 2 but we
removed the phrases after it and this and asked participants to complete the sentences. Eyetracking Experiment 3 (40 participants; 40 items) compared how it and this refer to two noun
phrases in the object positions. In norming Experiment 3 (16 participants; 40 items), we used
the same stimuli as in Experiment 3.
Contrary to the similarity account, Experiments 1, 2 and 3 and the norming experiments
showed that this and it refer to different entities and establish different attentional states.
References with this to a noun phrase led to longer fixations than did references to it. In
Experiments 2 and 3, fixations when referring to the first NP were longer in the this condition
than in the it condition. Our results will be interpreted in relation to a time-course model of
anaphora processing. This combines the focus processing theory of Sidner (1983), the twostage model (bonding and resolution process) of Sanford et.al. (1983) and of Garrod and
Sanford (1994), and the late filter model of Sturt (2003). The regressions-out analyses in
Experiments 1,2 and 3 indicate that participants resolve ambiguity by taking into account the
semantic overlap among referential expressions, anaphoric expressions and the preamble.
Eye-tracking Experiment 1
Condition 1: it referring to the proposition
Alice pruned the bonsai tree. /It was/ a splendid idea /and she /forgot all her stress
Condition 2: this referring to the proposition
Alice pruned the bonsai tree. / This was/ a splendid idea/ and she/ forgot all her stress
Condition 3: it referring to the noun phrase
Alice pruned the bonsai tree. / It was/ a splendid plant/ and she /forgot all her stress.
Condition 4: this referring to the noun phrase
Alice pruned the bonsai tree. /This was/ a splendid plant/ and she /forgot all her stress
Eyetracking Experiment 2
Condition 1: it referring to the subject/NP1
The room was small and had a large jug in the centre. / It had/ a large window/ and looked stylish.
Condition 2: this referring to the subject/ NP1
The room was small and had a large jug in the centre. /This had/ a large window/ and looked stylish.
Condition 3: it referring to the object/ NP2
The room was small and had a large jug in the centre. /It had /a large handle/ and looked stylish.
Condition 4: this referring to object/NP2
The room was small and had a large jug in the centre. /This had /a large handle/ and looked stylish.
Eyetracking Experiment 3
Condition 1: it referring to the object/NP1
Joseph put the wine glass next to the bottle. Before washing up, he/ grasped it /by its stem and/put it on
sideboard.
Condition 2: this referring to the object/NP1
Joseph put the wine glass next to the bottle. Before washing up, he/ grasped this/ by its stem and /put it on
sideboard.
Condition 3: it referring to the object/NP2
Joseph put the wine glass next to the bottle. Before washing up, he/ grasped it /by its cork and/ put it on
sideboard.
Condition 4: this referring to the object/NP2
Joseph put the wine glass next to the bottle. Before washing up, he/ grasped this/ by its cork and/put it on
sideboard.
the
the
the
the
References:
1-Ariel, M. (2004). Accessibility Marking: Discourse Functions, Discourse Profiles, and Processing Cues.
Discourse Processes, pp. 91-116.
2-Bosh, P. Katz, G. & Umbach,C. (2007). The non-subject bias of German demonstrative pronouns. In
Schwartz-Friesel,M., Consten, M. and Kneess, M (Eds). Anaphors in Text: Cognitive, formal, applied
approaches to anaphoric reference (pp 21-36) Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
3-Brown-Schmidt, S. Byron, D.K. & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2005). Beyond salience: Interpretation of personal and
demonstrative pronouns. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, pp. 292–313.
4-Cornish, F. (2010). Anaphora: text-based or Discourse-Dependent? Functionalist vs. Formalist Accounts.
Functions of Language,17, pp. 207-241.
5-Fillmore, C.J. (1997). Lectures on Deixis. Stanford: CSL publications.
6-Garrod, S., & Sanford, A. J. (1994). Resolving sentences in a discourse context: How discourse
representation affects language understanding. In M. Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of
psycholinguistics (pp. 675– 698). New York: Academic Press.
7-Fossard, M & Rigalleau,P. (2005). Referential Accessibility and Anaphora Resolution: The Case of
French Hybrid Demonstrative Pronoun Celui-Ci/ Celle-Ci. In Antonio,B.(Eds). Anaphora Processing.
Linguistic, cognitive and computational modelling (pp. 283-303). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
8-Gundel, J. K, Hegarty, M. & Borthen, K. (1993). Cognitive Status, Information Structure, and Pronominal
Reference to Clausally Introduced Entities. Journal of Logic, Language and Information, 12, pp. 281299.
9-Kaiser, E. & Trueswell, J. C. (2008). Interpreting pronouns and demonstratives in Finnish: Evidence for a
form-specific approach to reference. Language and Cognitive Processes, 5, pp. 709-748.
10-Passonneau, R. (1989). Getting at Discourse Referents. Proceedings of the 27th annual meeting on
Association for Computational Linguistics.
11-Petch- Tyson, S. (1996). Demonstrative expressions in argumentative discourse: A computer corpus-based
comparison of non-native and native English. In Botley, S., & McEnery, A.M. (Eds),Corpus-based
Computational Approaches to Discourse Anaphora (pp 43-65). Philadelphia: Benjamins.
12-McCarthy, M. (1994). It, this and that. In Coulthard, R.A. (Eds.), Words in Text (pp.89-105). London:
Routledge
13-Sanford, A., Garrod, S., Lucas, A., & Henderson, R. (1983). Pronouns without explicit antecedents. Journal
of Semantics, pp. 303–318.
14-Sturt, P. (2003). The time-course of the application of binding constraints in reference resolution. Journal of
Memory and Language, 48, pp. 542–562
15-Webber, B. L. (1988). Discourse Deixis: reference to discourse segments. Proceedings of the 26th annual
meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics. Buffalo, New York, pp.113–122.