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On bound variable interpretations: the LF-only hypothesis.

L Frazier¹, C Clifton

¹Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003, USA. lyn@linguist.umass.edu

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

|March 10, 2000

Summary

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Researchers investigated pronoun interpretation, finding that the preference for bound variable interpretations is specific to certain linguistic contexts like VP ellipsis. This preference doesn't extend to all quantificational contexts or require sentences to be within the same sentence boundary.

Area of Science:

Psycholinguistics
Computational Linguistics
Cognitive Science

Background:

Pronoun interpretation involves resolving ambiguity between bound variable and coreferential readings.
Previous hypotheses suggested a processing advantage for bound variable interpretations due to simpler logical form (LF) access.

Purpose of the Study:

To test the hypothesis that perceivers prefer bound variable interpretations of pronouns due to LF access.
To determine the conditions under which bound variable interpretations are preferred over coreferential ones.

Main Methods:

Experimental design to probe pronoun interpretation preferences.
Analysis of processing advantages in various quantificational contexts, including VP ellipsis.
Testing the effect of sentence boundaries on interpretation preference.

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Main Results:

The hypothesis was disconfirmed: preference for bound variable interpretations is not general across all quantificational contexts.
A processing advantage for bound variable interpretations was observed specifically in VP ellipsis constructions.
This advantage persisted even when the antecedent and ellipsis site spanned across sentence boundaries.

Conclusions:

The processing advantage for bound variable interpretations is context-dependent, particularly linked to VP ellipsis.
The explanation for this advantage likely lies beyond simple LF availability and may involve discourse-level processing specific to VP ellipsis.
Further research is needed to identify the precise mechanisms driving the bound variable advantage in VP ellipsis.