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Abstract:
The use of referring expressions is thought to make
fundamental contributions in the construction of a coherent
discourse by providing critical links in integrating separate
utterances into an existing discourse representation (Gordon,
Grosz, and Gilliom, 1993; Grosz, Joshi, and Weinstein, 1995).
Studies in discourse structure and coreference have indicated
that different forms of referring expressions have different
effects on discourse comprehension: Reduced expressions (e.g.,
pronouns) promote discourse coherence whereas unreduced
expressions (e.g., proper names) do not (Givon, 1992; Gordon et
al., 1993). This view is supported by the finding that the
reading time of sentences with pronouns can be significantly
faster than that of matched sentences with repeated names, a
phenomena termed the "repeated-name penalty" (Gordon, et al.,
1993). This effect has been found to be modulated by the
syntactic status of the expressions as well as by discourse
relations (Gordon, et al., 1993). The goal of the current study
is to determine whether referring expressions contribute to the
comprehension of Chinese in the same way that they do in English
despite the very different linguistic properties of the two
languages (Li and Thompson, 1979). Two reading-time experiments,
examining repeated names, overt pronouns, and zero-pronouns, were
conducted in Chinese. Experiment 1 found a repeated-name penalty
when the syntactic subject coreferred with the syntactic subject
of the preceding sentence but not when the syntactic object
coreferred with the syntactic object in the preceding sentence, a
pattern that matches the one found in English (Gordon, et al.,
1993). Reading times for sentences with zero-pronouns, a reduced
expression that is not found in English, did not differ from
those with overt pronouns, indicating that these two types of
reduced expressions make similar contributions to discourse
coherence; this finding does not support the view that the zero
pronoun in Chinese has a special role in discourse coherence (Li,
1985; Li and Thomson, 1979). Experiment 2 showed that the
repeated name penalty in Chinese depends on the referential
relations between successive sentences as it does in English. The
results of the studies show that structural factors influence the
comprehension of referring expressions in similar ways for
Chinese and English. This is consistent with the view that the
underlying processes of language comprehension are similar for
diverse languages despite their differences in surface form.
Givon, T. (1992). The grammar of referential coherence as mental
processing instructions.
Linguistics,
30, 5-55.
Gordon, P. C., Grosz, B. J., and Gilliom, L. A. (1993).
Pronouns, names, and the centering of attention in discourse.
Cognitive Science,
17, 311-347.
Grosz, B. J., Joshi, A. K., and Weinstein, S. (1992). Centering:
A framework for modeling the local coherence of discourse.
Computational Linguistics,
21, 203-226.
Li, C. I. (1985).
Participant anaphora in Mandarin Chinese.
University of Florida, Linguistic Department.
Li, C. N. and Thompson, S. A. (1979).
Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar.
University of California Press.
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