The influence of discourse continuity on referential form choice

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Psycholinguistics
• Discourse Analysis

Background:

• Research suggests interclausal connection influences zero pronoun use in functional linguistics.
• Kim (1990, 1992) proposed that clause chain languages like Korean and Japanese utilize zero pronouns with tight interclausal connections, maintaining subject and action continuity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether subject and action continuity influence zero pronoun use in Korean.
• To examine the role of discourse continuity in referential form choice.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted with Korean speakers.
• Participants' use of zero pronouns was analyzed following interclausal connectives.
• Factors such as grammatical role, referential predictability, and coherence relation were controlled.

Main Results:

• Korean speakers used significantly more zero pronouns following connectives with higher subject continuity (Experiment 1).
• Increased zero pronoun usage was also observed with greater action continuity (Experiments 1 and 2).
• The effect of connectives on zero pronoun use persisted even when other linguistic factors were controlled (Experiment 2).

Conclusions:

• The findings support the hypothesis that discourse continuity, specifically subject and action continuity, drives the use of zero pronouns in Korean.
• This research underscores the importance of discourse continuity in explaining referential form choices in language.