Coreference and antecedent representation across languages.

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science
• Linguistics

Background:

• Pronoun resolution in languages with syntactic gender (e.g., German) may involve accessing lexical information of antecedents.
• Languages without syntactic gender (e.g., English) might not require such lexical retrieval for pronoun processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether antecedent retrieval for pronoun resolution involves rapid semantic and phonological reactivation in German and English.
• To explore cross-linguistic differences in antecedent retrieval based on grammatical features.

Main Methods:

• Eye-tracking while reading was employed to measure reading behavior.
• Participants read sentences in German and English involving pronoun resolution.

Main Results:

• German readers showed early sensitivity to semantic features of the pronoun's antecedent.
• No immediate semantic or phonological effects specific to coreference were observed in English readers.
• Phonological features of the antecedent did not influence processing in either language.

Conclusions:

• Early semantic facilitation in German is likely linked to syntactic gender reactivation.
• Antecedent retrieval processes during language comprehension vary across languages, influenced by grammatical requirements.
• Grammatical properties, such as syntactic gender, shape cognitive mechanisms underlying language processing.