The use of subject pronouns by bilingual speakers using both a pro-drop and a non-pro-drop language (e.g. Spanish heritage speakers in the USA) is a well-studied topic in research on cross-linguistic influence in language contact situations. Previous studies looking at bilinguals with different proficiency levels have yielded conflicting results on whether there is transfer from the non-pro-dro...

This paper presents an annotation project aimed at elicitation of concept interconnections within people’s common knowledge. Motivation, annotation scheme and relevant previous work are discussed and some potential applications are suggested.

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...

We examine demonstrative pronouns in a portion of the Santa Barbara Corpus of American English and propose a coding scheme that classifies pronouns with nominal as well as non-nominal antecedents into direct and indirect, depending on whether their referent is the same as the referent/denotation of the antecedent. In agreement with previous studies, we find that demonstratives more often have n...

Centering Theory is applied to a narrated film retelling in Kaqchikel Mayan in order to better understand discourse constraints on the form of referring expression. It is shown that Backwards Looking Centers are very often encoded by zero pronouns, and that center Shifts more often employ full pronouns and full noun phrases than do center Continues and Retains. Preverbal pronouns and full noun ...

The research investigated how comprehenders use structural information during co-reference resolution of the pronouns her, him, and his. In Experiment 1, participants read sentences containing the pronoun her in object position, functioning as SPEC or NP and preceded by one of three types of NPs in subject position (e.g., ‘‘Mary/Mark/They saw her friend/yesterday. . .’’). In Experiment 2, addit...