The Natural Syntax of Local Coreference

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Linguistics
• Psycholinguistics

Background:

• Emergentist approaches in cognitive science face challenges in explaining linguistic phenomena traditionally addressed by formal theories.
• Existing research often focuses on European and East Asian languages, necessitating broader comparative studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To outline an emergentist account for constraints on local anaphora resolution.
• To demonstrate that English and Balinese share a fundamental coreference system.
• To argue that processing pressures, rather than grammatical principles, shape this system.

Main Methods:

• Comparative linguistic analysis of anaphora resolution in English and Balinese.
• Development of an emergentist framework to explain coreference patterns.
• Examination of constraints on local anaphora across typologically distinct languages.

Main Results:

• Despite differing surface structures, English and Balinese exhibit an essentially identical system of coreference.
• The observed patterns of anaphora resolution are best explained by cognitive processing pressures.
• Formal grammatical principles are not the primary drivers of these coreference constraints.

Conclusions:

• An emergentist perspective provides a unified account for anaphora resolution across diverse languages.
• Processing pressures are a key factor in shaping universal linguistic structures like coreference.
• This research supports a cognitive approach to language, moving beyond traditional formalist explanations.