Journal
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 75, Issue 8, Pages 1428-1447Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/17470218211051989
Keywords
Language production; referential communication; similarity-based competition
Funding
- Leverhulme Trust [RPG-2016-253]
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Research has shown that speakers use fewer pronouns when the referential candidates are more similar and compete more strongly, with the competition being influenced by non-linguistic factors. The type of pronoun used also plays a role in how similarity affects non-linguistic competition.
Research has shown that speakers use fewer pronouns when the referential candidates are more similar and hence compete more strongly. Here we examined the locus of such an effect, investigating (1) whether pronoun use is affected by the referents' competition at a non-linguistic level only (non-linguistic competition account) or whether it is also affected by competition arising from the antecedents' similarities (linguistic competition account) and (2) the extent to which this depends on the type of pronoun. Speakers used Italian null pronouns and English pronouns less often (relative to full nouns) when the referential candidates compete more strongly situationally, while the antecedents' semantic, grammatical or phonological similarity did not affect the rates of either pronouns, providing support for the non-linguistic competition account. However, unlike English pronouns, Italian null pronouns were unaffected by gender congruence between human referents, running counter to the gender effect for the use of non-gendered overt pronouns reported earlier. Hence, while both null and overt pronouns are sensitive to non-linguistic competition, what similarity affects non-linguistic competition partly depends on the type of pronouns.
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