When accessibility distinctions matter or don't: Divergent patterns of offline and online cataphora resolution

This study investigates how cataphoric pronouns are resolved in Korean, offering new insights into the cognitive mechanisms behind referential interpretation. Using both offline (questionnaire) and online (eye-tracking) methods, we examine whether mental accessibility-based constraints consistently influence pronoun resolution across processing modes. Offline results align with Accessibility Theory (Ariel, 2001): while both null (pro) and overt pronouns show a subject antecedent preference, the bias is stronger for pro, and overt pronouns display more flexibility toward object antecedents. However, the eye-tracking data reveal a different pattern: sentences were read more quickly when the context supported a subject antecedent interpretation-regardless of pronoun type-indicating a generalized subject bias during real-time processing. Notably, the two pronoun types did not differ in the strength of this bias during online comprehension. These findings support an active search mechanism for antecedents in real-time processing but also reveal a dissociation between online and offline resolution strategies. Overall, the results indicate that accessibility distinctions guide pronoun resolution in offline interpretation, but play a more limited role during rapid online comprehension in cataphoric dependencies, where they may conflict with strong processing heuristics. By highlighting this cross-task divergence, our findings suggest that mental accessibility constraints may be interpreted differently-or weighted unequally-across processing domains.