The processing role of structural constraints on the interpretation of pronouns and anaphors

Abstract

The authors report 6 self-paced word-by-word reading studies of how morphosyntactic agreement, focus status, and the structural constraints of binding theory apply and interact during the online interpretation of pronouns (e.g., him, her) and anaphors (e.g., himself, each other). Previous studies held that structural conditions on coreference work as interpretive filters that impose exceptionless limits on which antecedent candidates can be evaluated by subsequent, content-based processes. These experiments instead support an interactive-parallel-constraint model, in which multiple weighted constraints (including constraints on binding) simultaneously influence the net activation of a candidate during preselection stages of antecedent evaluation. Accordingly, structurally inaccessible candidates can interfere with antecedent selection if they are both prominent in focus structure and gender-number compatible with the pronoun or anaphor.