Child-Adult parallels in the interpretation of anaphora

5 Child-Adult Parallels

Children• Principle C

Adults• Principle C

Principle C in Children

ok While Pooh was reading the book he ate the apple.ok Pooh ate the apple while he was reading the book.ok While he was reading the book, Pooh ate the apple.* He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book.

(from Kazanina & Phillips, 2001)

Robust finding in children ages 3+ years

Crain & McKee 1985 (English)Crain & Thornton 1998 (English)Guasti & Chierchia 1999 (Italian)Kazanina & Phillips 2001 (Russian)Leddon & Lidz 2005 (English)etc.

Immediate Constraint Application

While she was taking classes full-time, Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills.While she was taking classes full-time, Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills.

She was taking classes full-time while Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills.She was taking classes full-time while Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills.

While she …

She …

Jessica …

Russell …

while Jessica …

while Russell …

Self-Paced Reading, Gender Mismatch Paradigm

(Kazanina et al., 2007, J. Mem. Lang.)

-60

-40

-20

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

because lastsemester

while-cd SHE wastaking

classes while-ab NAME wasworking

full-time to…

Residual Reading Times

nonPrC GM

nonPrc GMM

PrC GM

PrC GMM

Results

GME at the 2nd NP in non-PrC pair NO GME at the 2nd NP in PrC pair

Condition C – immediate

while while Jessica

Russell

(Kazanina et al., 2007, J. Mem. Lang.)

5 Child-Adult Parallels

Children• Principle C: robust

Adults• Principle C: robust

Principle A in Children• “John said that Tom washed himself”

• Children are rather good at the locality restriction on English reflexives

(Wexler & Chien 1985, Zukowski & McKeown 2008ab, etc., etc.)

Principle A as a constraint on generation• Nicol (1988), Nicol & Swinney (1989): cross-modal priming

study in which subjects had to make a lexical decision to a visually presented word while listening to sentences

– The boxer told the skier that the doctor for the team would blame himself for the recent injury.

punch – no effectslope – no effectnurse - facilitation

Sturt 2003Experiment 1

Accessible-mismatch/Inaccessible-mismatch

Jonathan was pretty worried at the City Hospital.

He remembered that the surgeon had pricked herself with a used syringe needle. There should be an investigation soon.

Accessible-mismatch/Inaccessible-match

Jennifer was pretty worried at the City Hospital.

She remembered that the surgeon had pricked herself with a used syringe needle. There should be an investigation soon.

The hippopotamus yawned.1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8

First fixation 2

First pass 2 + 3 all fixations before exiting region

Regression path 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 all fixations before exiting region to right

Second pass 7 all fixations after first exiting to right

Experiment 1- Early processing: first-pass at reflexive region

Experiment 1- Later processing: Second-pass at pre-final region

Experiment 1- Later processing: second pass RT at reflexive region

Sturt 2003

Sturt 2003Experiment 2

Accessible-mismatch/Inaccessible-matchJonathan was pretty worried at the City Hospital.The surgeon [RC who treated Jonathan] had pricked herself with a used

syringe needle. There should be an investigation soon.

Accessible-mismatch/Inaccessible-mismatchJennifer was pretty worried at the City Hospital.The surgeon [RC who treated Jennifer] had pricked herself with a used

syringe needle. There should be an investigation soon.

Replicated effects of structurally accessible antecedentNo effects of structurally inaccessible antecedent

Electrophysiology of Sentence Comprehension

• Semantic anomaly

N400

I drink my coffee with cream and sugarI drink my coffee with cream and socks

Kutas & Hillyard (1980)

N400

Morpho-Syntactic violations

Every Monday he mows the lawn.Every Monday he *mow the lawn.

The plane brought us to paradise.The plane brought *we to paradise.

(Coulson et al., 1998)

(Slide from Kaan (2001)

he mowshe *mow

P600

(Slide from Kaan (2001)

he mowshe *mow

P600

Left Anterior Negativity (LAN)

(Slide from Kaan (2001)

The elementary-school teacher that Sophie liked very much scolded herself …The elementary-school teacher that Bernard liked very much scolded himself …The elementary-school teacher that Sophie liked very much scolded himself …

(Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2008)

Reflexives

P600 response to violationNo intrusion effect

(Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2008)

Principle A as a late filter• Badecker & Straub (2002)

a) Jane thought that Bill owed himself another opportunity to solve the problem.

b) John thought that Bill owed himself another opportunity to solve the problem.

• The two conditions are different only in the gender of the inaccessible antecedent of himself; yet reading times at the two words following himself were faster in (a) than in (b) => binding constraints did not immediately rule out binding-inaccessible positions from the consideration.

Experiment 4

Experiment 5

Experiment 6

No multiple-match effect

No multiple-match effect

Principle A in Adults• Various tests of on-line sensitivity to only correct antecedents, e.g.

– The elementary-school teacher that Sophie liked very much scolded herself …– The elementary-school teacher that Sophie liked very much scolded himself …– The elementary-school teacher that Bernard liked very much scolded himself …

• Immediate sensitivity only to grammatically appropriate subject (eye-tracking: Sturt 2003; ERPs: Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2009; CMLD: Nicol & Swinney 1989; etc.)

• Unremarkable … until set against other cases of sensitivity to irrelevant NPs

– NPI illusions: *The bills [that no senators voted for] will ever become law.(Vasishth et al. 2008; Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2009)

– Agreement illusions: *The runners [who the driver see each morning] always wave.(Wagers, Lau, & Phillips, in press; Pearlmutter et al., 1999)

5 Child-Adult Parallels

Children• Principle C: robust• Principle A: robust

Adults• Principle C: robust• Principle A: robust

Principle B in Children• 30+ studies using a wide range of techniques

• Possible to show that 4-5 year olds can apply the constraint,for referential & quantificational antecedents

• But there’s no question that learners ofEnglish-type languages can access the illicitinterpretation, and have difficulty blocking it

• The experimental record is very mixed

• Principle B applies as a filter

“Grumpy painted him”

Principle B in AdultsJohn thought that Bill owed him another chance to solve the problem.John thought that Beth owed him another chance to solve the problem.

(Badecker & Straub, 2002)

Badecker & Straub 2002

Results are Mixed

Immediate effectsNicol & Swinney 1989Clifton et al. 1997Lee & Williams 2006

Delayed effectsBadecker & Straub 2002Runner et al. 2003Sturt et al. 2005Kennison 2003

Principle B as a constraint on generation• Nicol (1988), Nicol & Swinney (1989): cross-modal priming

study in which subjects had to make a lexical decision to a visually presented word while listening to sentences

– The boxer told the skier that the doctor for the team would blame him for the recent injury.

punch – facilitationslope – facilitationnurse - no effect

Principle B as a constraint on generation

• Clifton, Kennison & Albrecht (1997): self-paced reading task. The supervisor(s) is a binding-accessible antecedent for his in (c-d) (but there is a number-match only in (d)), but not for him in (a-b).

a) The supervisors paid him yesterday to finish typing the manuscript.b) The supervisor paid him yesterday to finish typing the manuscript.

c) The supervisors paid his assistant yesterday to finish typing the manuscript.d) The supervisor paid his assistant yesterday to finish typing the manuscript.

a) A number mismatch/match effect found in (c) vs. (d), but not in (a) vs. (b) => support for PrB as a constraint on generation

fast

slow

But …

(Kennison, 2003)

(Kennison, 2003)

“The results indicated that when a single highly salient, structurally available antecedent was available in the context, the coreference resolution […] was not affected by the structurally unavailable subject.” (p. 348)

Lee & Williams (2006)

Self-paced reading results (1 word after pronoun) show effect of gender stereotype of structurally accessible antecedent (i.e., main clause subject, but no effect of the structurally inaccessible embedded clause subject.

5 Child-Adult Parallels

Children• Principle C: robust• Principle A: robust

• Principle B: fragile

Adults• Principle C: robust• Principle A: robust

• Principle B: fragile

• How are the illicit interpretations made available in the Principle B studies?

Immediate Constraint Application

While she was taking classes full-time, Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills.While she was taking classes full-time, Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills.

She was taking classes full-time while Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills.She was taking classes full-time while Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills.

While she …

She …

Jessica …

Russell …

while Jessica …

while Russell …

Self-Paced Reading, Gender Mismatch Paradigm

(Kazanina et al., 2007, J. Mem. Lang.)

Backwards Anaphora in Russian Adults

• Russian adults reliably judge violations of both constraints as quite bad

– Principle C: *She looked through the scripts while Marina prepared …– Poka-constraint: *While she looked through the scripts, Marina prepared …

• In self-paced reading study, the two constraints show contrasting profiles

– Principle C: no effect of gender match at critical subject NP– Poka-constraint: gender match effect shortly after critical subject NP

• Implies that coreference is briefly considered in the poka-sentences, but ultimately rejected

Russian adults briefly consider interpretations that children settle upon

(Kazanina & Phillips, submitted)

350

400

450

500

550

600

650

Sin

ce last

year

bef

ore HE

ob

tain

ed the

stam

p

MIC

HA

EL

/JE

SS

ICA

did

n't

sig

h

any

do

cum

ents

JES

SIC

A /

MIC

HA

EL

had

to

po

stp

on

e

the

con

stra

ct s

ign

ing

RUS_before-gm

RUS_before-gmm

Results: no-constraint condition

F1(1,39)=4.16, p<.05F2(1,11)=3.36, p<.07

GMME

Acc. Ant.Acc. Ant.Dep. Elem.

GMME after the 2nd subject; similar to the English no-constraint condition

400

450

500

550

600

650

700S

ince last

year HE

was

auct

ion

ing

off

the

mu

seu

m je

wel

s

wh

ile

MIC

HA

EL

/ JE

SS

ICA

was

tryi

ng

to a

rran

ge

tick

ets

to S

A

JOH

N

was

afra

id to

rais

e su

spic

iso

n.

RUS_PrC-gm

RUS_PrC-gmm

Results: Pr.C-conditions

n.s.Fs<2.7, ps>.1

Inacc. AntPrinciple C

Dep. Elem. Acc. Ant.

No effect at/after 2nd subject; replicates the English Principle C condition

400

450

500

550

600

650

700

Sin

ce last

year

wh

ile HE

was

auct

ion

ing

off

the

mu

seu

mje

wel

s

MIC

HA

EL

/JE

SS

ICA

was

tryi

ng

to a

rran

ge

tick

ets

to S

A

JOH

N

was

afra

id to

rais

e su

spic

iso

n.

RUS_poka-gm

RUS_poka-gmm

Results: Poka-conditions

Inacc. Antpoka-constraint

Dep. Elem. Acc. Ant.

F1(1,39)=5.36, p<.05F2(1,23)=4.66, p<.05

GME

GME after the 2nd subject

5 Child-Adult Parallels

Children• Principle C: robust• Principle A: robust

• Principle B: fragile

• Russian poka: over-generate

Adults• Principle C: robust• Principle A: robust

• Principle B: fragile

• Russian poka: over-generate

Reconstruction in Children & Adults

Children: Leddon & Lidz, 2005 (BU conf.)

Adults: Omaki, Dyer, Malhotra, Sprouse, Lidz, & Phillips, 2007 (CUNY

conf.)

Adult on-line data (Omaki et al. 2007)

GMME

GMME

GMME

GMME

• John knew [that Bill saw a picture of himself.]John knew [that Bill was proud of himself.]

• John knew [which picture of himself Bill saw]John knew [how proud of himself Bill was]

5 Child-Adult Parallels

Children• Principle C: robust• Principle A: robust

• Principle B: fragile

• Russian poka: over-generate

• Reconstr.: under-generate

Adults• Principle C: robust• Principle A: robust

• Principle B: fragile

• Russian poka: over-generate

• Reconstr.: first analysis

Back to Grumpy …• “Grumpy painted him”

• Why are children so vulnerable?How do they become adultlike?

(Trueswell et al. 1999)

“Kindergarten Path Effect”

(Trueswell et al. 1999)

(Trueswell et al. 1999)