In the traditional E-type approach to d-(onkey)-pronouns, these pronouns are interpreted as definite descriptions that contain a bound i-(ndividual)-variable (Evans, 1977; Cooper, 1979; Heim, 1990). Elbourne (2001, 2002); Büring (2004) have recently proposed a variant of the E-type approach which dispenses with i-variable binding for donkey anaphora resolution altogether, deriving covariance vi...

This paper investigates the causes of the comparatively low success rates in finding the antecedents of plural pronouns as compared to finding antecedents of singular pronouns. We are trying to show experimentally that considering morphological agreement as a strong constraint in pronoun resolution results in the erroneous interpretation of almost a quarter of the plural pronouns. The work is b...

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...

Pronoun interpretation in English has been demonstrated to be sensitive to an interaction between grammatical and pragmatically-driven factors. This study investigated the interpretation of pronouns in Japanese, which has both null and overt forms. Thirty-two native speakers of Japanese per experiment participated in passage completion studies with transfer-of-possession contexts (Experiment 1)...

This paper proposes a method to resolve Japanese zero pronouns with extrasentential reference which can be realized in a practical machine translation system. This method focuses on semantic and pragmatic constraints such as modal expressions, verbal semantic attributes and conjunctions to determine the extrasentential referents of Japanese zero pronouns. According to a window test, 100% of zer...

This paper presents some facts about the syntax of subject pronouns in contact. We investigate agreement and EPP-checking Brazilian Venetan, a heritage northern Italo-Romance variety spoken southern Brazil contact with Portuguese. Central that constitutes basis is null-subject language presenting agreement-like clitics; Portuguese partial pro-drop language, which null subjects are allowed only ...

Previous research has shown that anaphor resolution in a non-native language may be more vulnerable to interference from structurally inappropriate antecedents compared to native anaphor resolution. To test whether previous findings on reflexive anaphors generalize to non-reflexive pronouns, we carried out an eye-movement monitoring study investigating the application of binding condition B dur...

In this paper we document a so-far neglected case of microvariation involving resumptive pronouns in the left-dislocation construction Meranese, spoken South Tyrol, and Mòcheno, Fersina valley (Trentino). While standard German elements belong to class D-pronouns, two Tyrolean dialects considered exhibit, as pronouns, both (i) D-pronouns (ii) pronominal usages distal demonstrative formed by defi...