Effects of Contrast on Referential Form: Investigating the Distinction Between Strong and Weak Pronouns

摘要

To further our understanding of the nature of the form-function mapping in anaphoric paradigms, this study investigated the referential properties of strong pronouns (long pronouns) in Estonian. Cross-linguistically, 2 main accounts of the long-short distinction have been proposed: the salience account (long pronouns refer to less salient antecedents) and the contrast account (long pronouns refer to entities that are being mentioned contrastively). To test these claims, this study compared parallel corpora of Estonian and Finnish to see how Estonian long pronouns are realized in Finnish and what the grammatical role of the antecedent is. Building on Pajusalu (1997)50. Pajusalu, R. 1997. Eesti pronoomeneid I. Ühiskeele see, too tema/ta [Estonian pronouns I. See too tema/ta in common Estonian]. Keel ja Kirjandus , 1: 24-30. 2, 106-115View all references, this study also analyzed the referential properties of long pronouns from the perspective of alternative semantics (Rooth, 199255. Rooth, M. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics , 1: 75-116. [CrossRef], [CSA]View all references) and Jackendoff's (1972)26. Jackendoff, R. S. 1972. Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.. View all references and Büring's (2003)8. Büring, D. 2003. On D-trees, beans and B-accents. Linguistics & Philosophy , 26: 511-545. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references research on contrast. The corpus patterns support the contrast account, indicating that the long-short distinction cannot be straightforwardly reduced to referent salience. As a whole, these results fit with the form-specific multiple-constraints approach to reference resolution (Kaiser & Trueswell, 200834. Kaiser, E. and Trueswell, J. C. 2008. Interpreting pronouns and demonstratives in Finnish: Evidence for a form-specific approach to reference. Language and Cognitive Processes , 23: 709-748. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®]View all references).View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01638530903347643