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ESSLLI 2004 1

Susceptibility to discourse/semantic factors:

An experimental approach to short-distance pronouns

and logophoric reflexives

Elsi Kaiser, Jeffrey T. Runner,

Rachel S. Sussman & Michael K. TanenhausUniversity of Rochester

[email protected]

Workshop on Semantic Approaches to Binding Theory

ESSLLI, Nancy,August 2004

1. Introduction

We present two experiments testing (i) the idea that source-of-information referents can antecede

BT-incompatible reflexives in picture-NPs (Kuno 1987), and (ii) the observation that perceiver-of-information referents can antecede BT-incompatible pronouns (see Tenny 2003). The results show

that discourse/semantic factors interact with BT, but affect pronouns with local antecedents morethan reflexives with non-local antecedents.

Structure of talk

1. Introduction

1.1 Basics of Binding Theory

1.2 Where standard Binding Theory runs into trouble1.3 Focus of this talk: Picture-NPs

2. Experiment 1: Picture-choosing task2.1 Predictions2.2 Results

3. Experiment 2: Picture verification

3.1 Predictions3.2 Results

3.3 Discussion of Experiments 1 and 2

4. Experiment 3: Eyetracking data (preliminary)

5. Conclusions

1.1 Basics of Binding Theory

Pronominal and reflexive noun phrases in English have a nearly complementary distribution.(1)

a. Juliusi saw him*i/j.b. Juliusi saw himselfi/*j.

c. Juliusi saw a picture of him*i/j.

d. Juliusi saw a picture of himselfi/*j.

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Kaiser, Runner, Sussman & Tanenhaus2

Binding theory (BT): structural account of this complementarity (e.g. Chomsky 1981, 1986):

A. An anaphor is bound in a local domain.B. A pronoun is free in a local domain.

C. An R-expression is free.

Binding:

A binds B iff A c-commands B, and A and B are coindexed.

C-command:

A node A c-commands a node B iff the first branching node dominating A also dominates B, and A

does not dominate B.

(2)

a. [Juliusi brother]j saw himselfj/*i.

b. [Juliusi brother]j saw himi/*j.

1.2 Where traditional Binding Theory runs into trouble

Unexpected reflexives:

(3)a. Bismarcks impulsiveness has, as so often, rebounded against himself (him). (quoted in

Zribi-Hertz 1989)

b. Warren says its a good time to be an astrophysicist. Fifteen years ago, we were starved forobservations, he says. Now its the opposite: Theorists like himself(him) are drowning in

data from modern telescopes. (from The New Mexican newspaper in Santa Fe, NM,6/28/04)

c. It was a quiet time for visitors at the house, and there were only four others staying apartfrom myself (me). (www.dkfoundation.co.uk/FriendsFoundationChaliceWell.htm)

Unexpected pronouns:

(4)a. Poor John. Now he's got an ambitious little snake next to him (himself).

(www.freerepublic.com/~regulator/in-forum)

b. Except he could not throw the ball because he was getting tackled. He was about to hit theground. He had to do something else. He saw someone behindhim (himself). He flipped the

ball in desperation. (www.wildbillschiefs.com/news/data/604.txt)

In these contexts, what guides the choice of one form over the other?

The interpretation and acceptability of pronouns and reflexives can be modulated bypragmatic/semantic and discourse factors (e.g. Cantrall 1974, Kuno 1987, Zribi-

Hertz 1989, Pollard & Sag 1992, Reinhart & Reuland 1993, Tenny 1996, Tenny 2003).

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ESSLLI 2004 3

1.3 Focus of this talk: Picture-NPs

Juliannai saw a picture of heri/herselfi.

Juliusi heard a story about himi/himselfi. [representational NPs]

A well-known case showing clear discourse/semantic effects for both pronouns andreflexives (e.g. Kuno 1987, Pollard & Sag 1992, Reinhart & Reuland 1993, Keller &

Asudeh 2001, Tenny 2003).

a. Reflexives:

o No purely structural theory of binding1

can capture the fact that the antecedent of a

reflexive can occur in another sentence, yet (5a) is acceptable. Various pragmaticfactors have a strong effect on the acceptability of this reflexive (compare to 5b).

Logophors

(5) [examples from Pollard & Sag 1992]

a. Johni was going to get even with Mary. [That picture of himi/himselfi] in the paper wouldreally annoy her, as would the other stunts he had planned.

b. Mary was quite taken aback by the publicity Johni was receiving. [That picture of

himi/*himselfi] in the paper would really annoy her, as would the other stunts he hadplanned.

Kuno (1987): Factors like point of view, awareness and semantic roles influence whether a

given entity can act as the antecedent for a logophoric reflexive (see also Pollard & Sag1992, Reinhart & Reuland 1993, many others).

Source: the one who is the intentional agent of the communication. (Sells 1987)

o BT-violating reflexive can refer to sources

(5) c. John heard from Mary about a damaging rumor about?herself/

(?)her (that was going

around). (Kuno 1987:175)

b. Pronouns:o The pronouns in (6a,c) (examples based on Reinhart & Reuland 1993) should not be

grammatical since they are c-commanded by a local antecedent.(6)

a. Luciei saw the picture of heri. b.* Luciei took the picture of heri.

c. Maxi heard the story about himi. d. * Maxi told the story about himi.

Tenny(2003): Calls these kinds of pronouns short-distance pronouns (SDPs) and notes thatverbs that provide a sentient, perceiving antecedent are especially conducive to SDPs.

.SDPs in representational contexts [..] are especially felicitous with perceiving

subjects (Tenny 2003).

1 Unless it takes into account discourse/pragmatic factors, but then it is no longer a purely structural approach.

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Experiments:

- manipulate structural and pragmatic/semantic variables

- collect a set of data from a large group of speakers- incremental, real-time information about interpretation

In this talk, we present two psycholinguistic experiments that investigate the claims that

(a) A referent which is a source of information (e.g. John in John told Bill about and Billheard from John) can act as the antecedent for a BT-violating reflexive [Kuno]

(b) Perceiving antecedents (e.g. Bill in John toldBill and Bill heard from John) are goodantecedents for SDPs [Tenny].

In some sense, these claims are two sides of the same coin, since verbs like tell/hearinvolveboth a source-of-information and a perceiver-of-information. Will BT-violating pronouns and

reflexives have a complementary distribution?

2. Experiment 1: Picture-choosing task

Participants listened to sentences like (7) while looking at scenes containing the two mentioned

referents as well as a picture of each referent

Task: Choose the picture that is mentioned in the sentence; if not sure which one to choose, justto go with gut instinct/first guess.

Factors: verb type (told/heard) and anaphoric form (himself/him), 4 conditions

Half of items contained two male referents and half contained two female referents. 24

participants, 20 critical items.

(7) Peter {told/heard from} Andrew about the picture of {him/himself} on the wall.

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ESSLLI 2004 5

2.1 Predictions

Binding theory

A reflexive is bound by a local c-commanding antecedent

(i) Peter told Andrew about the picture ofhimselfon the wall.

(ii) Peter heard from Andrew about the picture ofhimselfon the wall.

A pronoun is free, i.e. not c-commanded by its local antecedent

(i) Peter toldAndrew about the picture ofhim on the wall.(ii) Peter heard from Andrew about the picture ofhim on the wall.

[I will say more about the direction object/object of prepositional phrase difference later.]2

BT alone predicts that differences in verb semantics dont lead to differences in binding patterns.

Predictions for reflexives, based on Kuno and other discourse/semantic approaches:(i) Peter told Andrew about the picture ofhimselfon the wall.

{source}

{subject}

(ii) Peter heard from Andrew about the picture ofhimselfon the wall.{subject} {source}

Source-of-information influences whether a given entity can act as the antecedent for a

logophoric reflexive we predict that we should see more non-subject/logophoricresponses with heardthan with told.

Predictions for pronouns, based on Tenny:

(iii) Peter told Andrew about the picture ofhim on the wall.{perceiver}

{non-subject}

(iv) Peter heard from Andrew about the picture ofhim on the wall.

{perceiver} {non-subject}

Perceiving subjects are good antecedents for SDPs we predict that there will be more

subject responses with heardthan with told

2 The prediction charts on the next page also oversimplify with respect to the c-command question. In order to make thepredicted changes easier to represent, the graphs are drawn as if the object never c-commands the picture-NP. We will

return to this issue in Section 3.3, but I put it aside here for reasons that will become clear once we look at the results.

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Note: All numbers in these prediction charts are of course entirely hypothetical!

Kuno-type predictions:Binding Theory predictions:

Antecedent o f reflexiv e

0

20

40

60

80

100

subject=source object=source

subjec

object

Antecedent of reflexive

0

20

40

60

80

100

subject=source object=source

Antecedent of reflexive

a. Predictions of Binding theory b. Kuno-type predictions

Tenny-type predictions:

Binding Theory predic tions: Antec n

pronoun

ede t of

0

20

40

60

80

0

subject=perceiver object=perceiver dir. object=perceiver

(and c-commands)

Antecedent o f pronoun

0

20

40

60

80

100

subject=perceiver object=perceiver

d. Tenny-type predictions

Antecedent of pronoun

c. Predictions of Binding theory

10

subject

object

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ESSLLI 2004 7

2.2 Results and discussion

eflexive conditions:

verall preference to interpret the reflexive as referring to the subject:

tion: 86%

gnificant] numerical effect of the verb manipulation in the direction

a BT-incompatible way, as

ronoun conditions:

BT predicts that in both conditions, the pronoun should refer to the object.

ons in the heard

ition (58%) than in the toldcondition

People ronoun in the picture NP as a BT-

What referent was chosen as the antecedent of the pronoun or

the reflexive?

0

20

40

60

80

100

to ld/reflex heard from/reflex told/pro heard from/proreferentchosen

as

antecedent

(percentage)

subject

object

R

O

(i) told: 93%

(ii) heardcondi

A slight [but not sipredicted by Kunos claims (7% with heard, vs. 14% with told)

People do sometimes interpret the reflexive in the picture NP inreferring to the object ofheard(the source-of-information).

P

In light of Tennys work, we predict that we should see subject interpretati

condition, where the subject is the perceiver-of-information.

A significant effect of the verb manipulation (p

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Pronoun-reflexive asymmetry: The verb manipulation affects pronouns with local antecedentsmore than reflexives with non-local antecedents, i.e. pronouns seem to be more sensitive to this

kind of information than reflexives.

These results are consistent with the results of psycholinguistic eyetracking research (Runner,Sussman & Tanenhaus 2003) testing a simple discourse manipulation which had a much greater

effect on pronouns than on reflexives.

3. Experiment 2: Picture verification

Remove a design trait that may have biased participants in Experiment 1 to abide by BTprinciples and to ignore discourse/semantic factors:

o The visual scene always included a BT-compatible picture choice, participants were

always forced to choose between a BT-compatible choice and a non-BT compatiblechoice.

o So, although we can see in Experiment 1 how often a choicex wins out over a choicey, we cannot tell how often/to what degree the losing choice y is actually considered

by the participant

Exp. 2: Same kinds of sentences as Exp 1, but instead of being shown a scene with two

pictures and having to select one of the pictures, participants saw a scene consisting of thetwo mentioned referents and a picture ofone of the referents.

Task: Does the sentence match the scene? [yes/no]

By crossing verb type (told/heard), anaphoric form (himself/him), and visual scene (pictureof subject/picture of object), eight conditions were created. 24 participants, 32 critical items.

[told-ref-S]Peter told Andrew about the

icture of himself on the wall.

[w/ picture of subject, Peter]

[told-ref-O]

Peter told Andrew about the

icture of himself on the wall.[w/ picture of object, Andrew]

[told-pro-S] / [told-pro-O]

[heard-ref-S] / [heard-ref-O]

[heard-pro-S] / [heard-pro-O]

(7) Peter {told/heard from} Andrew about the picture of {him/himself} on the wall.

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ESSLLI 2004 9

3.1 Predictions

Reflexives (based on Kuno):Participants will be more likely to accept non-BT compatible responses (scenes where the picture

portrays the character who is in object position) in the heardcondition than in the toldcondition,since the object is the source-of-information in the heardcondition.

Pronouns (based on Tenny):Participants will be more likely to accept non-BT compatible responses (scenes where the pictureportrays the subject) in the heard condition than in the told condition, since the subject is the

perceiver-of-information in the heardcondition.

3.2 Results

Reflexives:

Percentage ofyes and no answers: Reflexives

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

told-ref-S heard-ref-S told-ref-O heard-ref-O

yes %

no %

Still a general preference to interpret the reflexive as referring to the subjecto Moreyes answers in the [told-ref-S] condition and the [heard-ref-S] condition than in

the [told-ref-O] and [heard-ref-O] conditions

But, when the visual scene supports a non-BT compatible interpretation (i.e. [told-ref-O]

and [heard-ref-O]), the verb manipulation influences participants responses:o More non-BT compatible answers (yes answers) in the heard from condition (37.5%)

than in the toldcondition (27%).

Overall, for the reflexive conditions, there is a marginal effect of verb type (p=0.06).

o The finding that the verb manipulation has a stronger effect on the reflexives in Exp.

2 suggests that the absence of a large effect in the first experiment may have beendue to the picture choices available in the visual scene.

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Pronouns:

Percentage ofyes and no answers: Pronouns

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

7080

90

100

told-pro-S heard-pro-S told-pro-O heard-pro-O

yes %

no %

A strong effect of the verb manipulation (p

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ESSLLI 2004 11

Studying reference to less preferred antecedentso Need to avoid forced-choice taskso Forced-choice set-up: how often a choicex wins out over a choicey

Doesnt tell us about how often/to what degree the losing choice y is

considered (e.g. Is it never considered, or is it a close competitor and only

loses out narrowly in the end?) Experiment 2 avoids this problem

Pronoun-reflexive asymmetry

o The results suggest that pronouns and reflexives differ in their sensitivity to the verbmanipulation, i.e. pronouns are influenced more by the perceiver-of-information

status of a potential antecedent than reflexives are by the source-of-informationstatus of a potential antecedent.

o Pronouns are more susceptible to discourse/semantic factors that reflexives? This fits with the fact that pronouns can be used as discourse anaphors in

free / non-bound positions (e.g. He saw a picture on the wall) in which their

interpretation is guided by discourse constraints.o Constraints are ranked/weighted differently for different forms?

This idea relates to reference resolution more generally

Kaiser (2003): Different referential forms are sensitive to different kinds of factors

Usual view: The salience/accessibility of the antecedent is what matterso The most reduced referring expressions refer to highly accessible referents; less

reduced forms are used for less accessible referents (e.g. Ariel 1990, Givn 1983,

Gundel, Hedberg & Zacharski 1993).

But evidence from Dutch, Finnish and Estonian indicates that different referential formswithin one language can be sensitive to different factors (Kaiser 2003, Kaiser in press,

Kaiser & Trueswell to appear a,b), including

o grammatical role of the antecedento discourse status of the antecedento whether the antecedent is contrastive

4. Experiment 3: Eyetracking [preliminary data!!!]

o

Current work: To gain a better understanding of the incremental, real-time processing ofpronouns and reflexives in picture-NPs, we are conducting eyetracking experiments

o Light-weight headmounted eyetracker with two cameras:

i. an infrared camera tracks the image of the pupil and the corneal reflection todetermine the position of the eye

ii. another camera records the visual scene in front of the participant

o Digital video output showing a crosshair where the participant was looking. Video tape is

analyzed to see how location of participants gaze changes over time

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o Participants see scenes displayed in a computer monitor, hear sentences like those used inExperiments 1 and 2 (but more varied verbs).

o Task: Click on the picture that is mentioned in the sentence.

Peter {told/heard from} Andrew about the picture of {him/himself} on the wall.

Subject-picture advantage for pronouns (still preliminary data)

o For pronouns, how much greater is the proportion of looks to the picture of the subject thanthe proportion of looks to the picture of the object?

o It looks like hear-type verbs prompt more looks to the picture of the subject than tell-

type verbs

-.1

-.05

0

.05

.1

.15

.2

.25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

t

h

Subject-picture advantage for pronouns

Heard-type verbsTold-type verbs

onset of pronoun

Time in frames (30 frames =1 second)

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ESSLLI 2004 13

5. Conclusions

Two experiments tested

(i) the claim, related to Kunos work, that reflexives can be BT-exempt when the antecedentis the source-of-information

(ii) the converse claim, related to Tennys work, that pronouns can be exempt from standardBT when the antecedent is the perceiver-of-information.

Our results show that the effects are stronger for pronouns than reflexives:

Pronouns: Strongly influenced by verb type (told/heard), and BT-violating SDPsoccur more often when the antecedent is the perceiver of information.

Reflexives: Source-of-information antecedents triggered somewhat more logophoricreadings than non-source antecedents.

Constraints are ranked/weighted differently for different forms?

Directions for future work: These experiments form part of a larger project investigating the contributions of syntactic,

pragmatic and semantic information to the interpretation of pronouns and reflexives in

English (see e.g. Runner, Sussman & Tanenhaus 2002, 2003, to appear), with plans to

extend the research into other languages

Possessed picture NPs:

These are regarded as crucially different from regular possessor-less picture-NPs;

possessed picture NPs are assumed to be subject to regular BT, such that a reflexive must bebound by the possessor, and a pronoun by some referent other than the possessor:

(8) Reinhart & Reuland (1993)a. Luciei liked a picture of herselfi.

b. */? Luciei liked your picture of herselfi.

However, as Reinhart & Reuland note, This is the place to note that the judgments on NPanaphora are much less clear than the linguistic literature tends to assume. Ben-Shalom and

Weijler (1990) report that in their informal empirical testing of judgments, speakers did not

agree even on the basic facts, for example, that a contrast exists in [(8)]. (Reinhart &Reuland 1993:683).

A fruitful area for investigation with experimental approaches

References

Ariel, M. 1990.Accessing NP antecedents. London: Routledge, Croom Helm.Cantrall, William R. (1974) Viewpoint, Reflexives, and the Nature of Noun Phrases. The Hague:

Mouton.

Chomsky, N. (1981).Lectures on Government and Binding. Foris. Dordrecht.

Chomsky, N. (1986).Barriers. MIT Press. Cambridge, Mass.

Givn, T. 1983. Topic continuity in discourse: A quantitative cross-language study. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.

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Gundel, J.K., Hedberg, N. & Zacharski, R. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring

expressions in discourse.Language 69:274-307.Kaiser, E. 2003. The quest for a referent: A crosslinguistic look at referent resolution. Ph.D.

dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

Kaiser, E. to appear. When salience isnt enough: Pronouns, demonstratives and the quest for anantecedent. To appear in R. Laury (ed.), Minimal reference in Finnic: The use and

interpretation of pronouns and zero in Finnish and Estonian discourse. Helsinki, Finland:Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.

Kaiser, Elsi & John C. Trueswell (to appear, a) Investigating the interpretation of pronouns anddemonstratives in Finnish: Going beyond salience. To appear in E. Gibson & N. Pearlmutter

(eds), The processing and acquisition of reference.

Kaiser, E & Trueswell, J. (to appear, b). The referential properties of Dutch pronouns anddemonstratives: Is salience enough? In M. Weisgerber (ed.) Proceedings of Sinn und

Bedeutung 8. University of Konstanz linguistics working papers.Keller, F. & Asudeh, A. 2001. Constraints on linguistic coreference: Structural vs. pragmatic

factors. Proc 23rd Conf. of the Cog Sci Soc, 483-488.

Kuno, S. 1987. Functional Syntax: Anaphora, discourse & empathy. Chicago.

Pollard, C. & Sag, I. 1992. Anaphors in English and the scope of Binding Theory. LinguisticInquiry 23:261-303.

Reinhart, T. & Reuland, E. 1993. Reflexivity.Linguistic Inquiry 24:657-720.

Runner, Jeffrey T., Rachel S. Sussman & Michael K. Tanenhaus (to appear). The Influence of

Binding Theory on the On-Line Reference Resolution of Pronouns, in Proceedings of North

Eastern Linguistic Society 34.

Runner, J., R. Sussman & M. Tanenhaus. 2003. Assignment of reference to reflexives and pronouns

in picture noun phrases: evidence from eye movements. Cognition 89(1):B1-B13.Runner, Jeffrey T., Rachel S. Sussman and Michael K. Tanenhaus (2002). Logophors in Possessed

Picture Noun Phrases. In L. Mikkelsen and C. Potts, eds., WCCFL 21 Proceedings, pp. 401-414. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Sells, P. (1987). Aspects of Logophoricity.Linguistic Inquiry 18 (3):445-479.Tenny, C. 1996. Short distance pronouns and locational deixis. LinguistList on-line conference.Tenny, C. 2003. Short distance pronouns, argument structure, and the grammar of sentience. Ms.,

2003.Zribi-Hertz, A. 1989. Anaphor Binding and Narrative Point of View English Reflexive Pronouns in Sentence

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