The Development of Anaphora Resolution at the Syntax-Discourse Interface: Pronominal Subjects in Greek Learners of Spanish

Abstract

This study explores the development of anaphora resolution (AR) in late sequential bilinguals, namely, adult Greek learners of Spanish at three proficiency levels (intermediate, lower advanced, upper advanced). The use of an overt/null pronominal subject anaphor is investigated in three discourse contexts: topic-continuity (a single antecedent requiring a null pronoun), contrastive-focus (two same-gender potential antecedents requiring an overt pronoun to avoid ambiguity) and emphatic (three same-gender potential antecedents showing unclear preference for either overt or null pronoun). Crucially, AR behaves similarly in Greek and Spanish. Results from an offline contextualised acceptability judgement task show that similarity between the learner's first (L1) and second (L2) languages does not necessarily facilitate the learning task. Even very advanced learners show deficits, which are selective since not all discursive contexts are equally affected. The results are better accounted for by general pragmatic economy principles: Learners prefer being redundant (overuse of overt pronouns in topic-continuity contexts) to ambiguous (acceptance of null pronouns in contrastive-focus contexts). Such tolerance for redundancy may reflect a more general pragmatic tendency, as also reported in child L1 development, adult L2 development and also in native grammars.

Referential choice in a second language: evidence for a listener-oriented approach

“…Interestingly, some studies have suggested that this pattern can persist in the acquisition of L2 pronouns involving two null subject languages (e.g. Spanish–Greek learners: Lozano, 2006; Margaza & Bel, 2006; Spanish–Italian bilingual children: Sorace, Serratrice, Filiaci, & Baldo, 2009). Based on these results, it has been proposed that L2 speakers use overt pronouns as a compensatory strategy to balance online processing demands (Sorace et al, 2009) when using large language units, like narratives.…”

Mantenimiento y cambio de tópico en un corpus de ELE

“…En el corpus registramos 589 ocurrencias del mantenimiento de tópico «puro». Como puede observarse en la figura (3), en la mayoría de los casos (86,25%) se opta por un pronombre nulo, rasgo típico del español (Lozano 2009(Lozano , 2016(Lozano , 2018 Luján 1999;Porto Dapena 1986;inter alia). Los aprendices, pues, demuestran que, a pesar de tener un nivel básico de español, ya tienen un buen dominio del uso del pronombre nulo, aunque su lengua materna no dispone de este recurso.…”

“…Solo en 45 casos (o sea, el 14,95%), el cambio de tópico se realiza con el pronombre personal explícito, aunque este tipo de expresión referencial siempre se presenta como el marcador típico del cambio de tópico en español (Lozano 2009(Lozano , 2016(Lozano , 2018Lubbers Quesada & Blackwell 2009;Alonso-Ovalle et al 2002;Luján 1999;Porto Dapena 1986;inter alia). Al contrario, cabe destacar el papel preponderante del nombre propio, que se utiliza en 195 casos 8 de cambio de tópico.…”

“…En lo que atañe al cambio de tópico, suele marcarse en español por el uso del pronombre personal explícito (Lozano 2009(Lozano , 2016(Lozano , 2018Lubbers Quesada & Blackwell 2009;Alonso-Ovalle et al 2002;Luján 1999;Porto Dapena 1986;inter alia), mientras que en neerlandés se requiere adicionalmente un énfasis prosódico en el mismo pronombre, puesto que no es suficiente utilizar el pronombre personal explícito, que también es obligatorio en casos de mantenimiento de tópico. Perales & Portillo (2007).…”

The Interface Hypothesis as a Framework for Studying L1 Attrition

“…English) on the language that has such a choice, as some of these studies have concluded. However, anaphoric forms have also been found to cause optionality in bilingual speakers of two typologically similar languages, not only in speakers of two null-subject languages (Bini, 1993;de Prada Pérez, 2009, 2015Lozano, 2006;Margaza & Bel, 2006;Mendes & Iribarren, 2007;Sorace et al, 2009), but also in speakers of two Germanic languages (Ellert, 2013;Juvonen, 1996), bimodal bilinguals (Bel, Ortells, & Morgan, 2014), and unimodal bilinguals (Chen Pichler & Koulidobrova, 2016).…”