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Abstract:
We report on a replication/extension experiment
investigating whether deep and surface anaphors access different
levels of representation during resolution. Using items
such as in (1), Tanenhaus, Carlson & Seidenberg (1985)
reasoned that if an anaphor accessed a surface representation,
then response times to the verification sentence should increase
in the Mismatch condition, because the original order would be
kept active, causing interference. They found that only
surface anaphors resulted in this increase, and concluded that
deep anaphors access a conceptual level. We suggest that a
full interpretation of their results is not possible without
adequate control conditions. Specifically, it is not clear
whether surface anaphors affect the linguistic representation by
keeping it active or whether deep anaphors affect the linguistic
representation through suppression (or both). The idea of
suppression during anaphor resolution has been put forth by
Lucas, Tanenhaus & Carlson (1990) who argue that resolution
of NP-anaphors involves inhibition of inappropriate antecedents
as opposed to reactivation of appropriate ones. We propose
that inhibition might also apply to levels of representation
during anaphor resolution. We ran an experiment intended to
shed light on the activation/suppression issue. We devised
two additional conditions, as illustrated in (2) and (3).
The Null Condition was designed to test the level of activation
of linguistic form immediately following Line 1 --- if Surface
anaphors induce a reactivation of the antecedent to initial
levels, then we expect these two conditions to pattern
alike. The Neutral Condition was designed to test the level
of activation in the context of normal decay of surface
form. If the Deep condition is less affected, then we have
some evidence for suppression; if the Surface condition is more
affected, then we have some evidence of reactivation beyond what
it would otherwise be. Preliminary results indicate a
replication of Deep-Surface difference in the subjects
analysis. The results also suggest that suppression is
involved with deep anaphors, as this was the only condition not
significantly affected by mismatch. Finally, reactivation
appears to be involved with Surface anaphors, which were more
affected than Neutral and just as affected as Null. We are
currently running additional subjects to further clarify the
data. We discuss verbal anaphors in the context of the
literature on anaphor resolution, specifically the issues of
reactivation and antecedent form. We suggest that more
levels than simply 'linguistic' versus 'conceptual' need to be
considered in order to account for the range of findings.
Examples
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(1)
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Line 1
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Jenny asked Ann's boyfriend
out.
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[match]
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or
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Jenny asked out Ann's
boyfriend.
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[mismatch]
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Line 2
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Ann was furious that she did
(it).
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[surface (ellipsis), or deep (do
it)]
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Verification:
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Jenny asked Ann's boyfriend
out.
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(2)
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Null Condition --- verification
immediately followed Line 1
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(3)
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Neutral Condition --- no verbal
anaphor in Line 2 (no reactivation of original VP),
e.g.,
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Line 2
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He suggested dinner and a
movie.
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References
Lucas, M., Tanenhaus, M., & Carlson, G.
(1990). Levels of representation in the interpretation of
anaphoric reference and instrument reference. Memory &
Cognition, 18:6, 611-631.
Tanenhaus, M., Carlson, g., & Seidenberg, M.
(1985). Do listeners compute linguistic
representations? In D. R. Dowty, L. Karttunen, & A. M.
Zwicky (Eds)., Natural Language Parsing: Theoretical,
Psychological and Computational Perspectives. Cambridge
University Press
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