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1

Cheng, Po-ching Fiona. "Can factors affecting English pronoun development explain the Cantonese pronoun development?" Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 1993. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B3620870X.

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Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1993.
"A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences). The University of Hong Kong, April 30, 1993." Also available in print.
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2

Benshenshin, Marwa. "Le mot quoi et ses équivalents arabes mā et māḏā dans les phrases interrogatives, percontatives, relatives et intégratives : Étude Contrastive." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016USPCA077.

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Cette étude comparative porte sur les emplois interrogatif, percontatif, relatif (avec antécédent) et intégratif (sans antécédent) du pronom indéfini quoi en français et de ses équivalents mā et māḏā en langue arabe. Notre corpus est tiré de la littérature du XXe siècle, et plus particulièrement des romans et des pièces de théâtre de Margueritte Duras et de Marcel Pagnol pour le français, et de Naguib Mahfouz pour lʼarabe. Nous étudierons tout dʼabord les emplois de ces trois pronoms régis par leurs caractéristiques et leurs propriétés syntaxiques. Nous analysons le comportement syntaxique de mā et de māḏā dans leurs emplois interrogatifs en comparaison avec leur équivalent français quoi. Nous verrons notamment quʼil existe des points communs et des divergences entre les deux langues, plus particulièrement concernant leur autonomie syntaxique au niveau de leur position dans la phrase. Nous examinons également lʼemploi de quoi et de mā et māḏā dans la subordination, en tant que percontatifs, relatifs et intégratifs. Notre analyse montre que les différentes formes de la percontative sʼexpliquent par les caractéristiques propres aux trois pronoms. Pour les deux autres emplois, il existe des points de divergence entre mā et quoi, surtout au niveau de lʼantécédent utilisé pour le relatif. Quant à lʼemploi intégratif, mā, de par ses propriétés syntaxiques, admet plus de fonctions dans la phrase que son équivalent quoi
This comparative study examines the interrogative, percontative, relative (with antecedent)and integrative (with no antecedent) uses of quoi the indefinite pronoun in French and itsequivalents mā and māḏā in Arabic. Our corpus is taken from twentieth century literature,especially novels and plays of Margueritte Duras and Marcel Pagnol for French, and NaguibMahfouz for Arabic. We first see how the uses of these three pronouns are governed by theircharacteristics and syntactic properties. We analyze the syntactic behavior of mā and māḏā intheir interrogative uses compared with their French equivalent quoi. We will see that there aresimilarities and differences between the two languages, especially regarding their syntacticautonomy in their position in the sentence. We also examine the use of quoi, mā and māḏā insubordination, as percontatifs, relatives and integratives. Our analysis shows that the differentforms of percontative are explained by the characteristics of the three pronouns. For the lasttwo uses, there are many points of divergence between mā and quoi, especially regarding thetype of antecedent being used. In terms of integrative use mā, through its syntactic properties,admits more functions in the sentence than its equivalent quoi
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3

Hartshorne, Joshua. "Pronoun Interpretation in Explanatory Sentences." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10239.

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While the referent of a non-reflexive pronoun clearly depends on context, the nature of these contextual restrictions is controversial. The present study seeks to characterize one representation that guides pronoun resolution. In causal dependant clauses, the preferred referent of a pronoun varies systematically with the verb in the main clause (contrast Sally frightened Mary because she... with Sally feared Mary because she...), a phenomenon known as "implicit causality". A number of researchers have tried to explain and predict such biases with reference to semantic classes of verbs and linguistic structure. However, the classes and representations invoked have been partly ad hoc and fitted to the phenomenon itself. In this dissertation, evidence is presented that an independently-motivated semantic theory accounts for many known and new phenomena in implicit causality. In the first study, it is shown that verbs within syntactically-defined classes show similar implicit causality biases. In the second study, it is shown that information about the participants in an event (such as their relative social status) do not affect pronoun biases, even when they do affect event representations. In the third study, it is shown that two syntactically-defined verb classes show the same pronoun biases in eight different languages. In combination, these results suggest that implicit causality biases derive primarily from the same underlying semantic representations that determine syntactic behavior and not from general, non-linguistic event representations.
Psychology
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4

Ahlenius, Camilla. "Automatic Pronoun Resolution for Swedish." Thesis, KTH, Skolan för elektroteknik och datavetenskap (EECS), 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-289192.

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This report describes a quantitative analysis performed to compare two different methods on the task of pronoun resolution for Swedish. The first method, an implementation of Mitkov’s algorithm, is a heuristic-based method — meaning that the resolution is determined by a number of manually engineered rules regarding both syntactic and semantic information. The second method is data-driven — a Support Vector Machine (SVM) using dependency trees and word embeddings as features. Both methods are evaluated on an annotated corpus of Swedish news articles which was created as a part of this thesis. SVM-based methods significantly outperformed the implementation of Mitkov’s algorithm. The best performing SVM model relies on tree kernels applied to dependency trees. The model achieved an F1-score of 0.76 for the positive class and 0.9 for the negative class, where positives are pairs of pronoun and noun phrase that corefer, and negatives are pairs that do not corefer.
Rapporten beskriver en kvantitativ analys som genomförts för att jämföra två olika metoder för automatisk pronomenbestämning på svenska. Den första metoden, en implementation av Mitkovs algoritm, är en heuristisk metod vilket innebär att pronomenbestämningen görs med ett antal manuellt utformade regler som avser att fånga både syntaktisk och semantisk information. Den andra metoden är datadriven, en stödvektormaskin (SVM) som använder dependensträd och ordvektorer som särdrag. Båda metoderna utvärderades med hjälp av en annoterad datamängd bestående av svenska nyhetsartiklar som skapats som en del av denna avhandling. Den datadrivna metoden överträffade Mitkovs algoritm. Den SVM-modell som ger bäst resultat bygger på trädkärnor som tillämpas på dependensträd. Modellen uppnådde ett F1-värde på 0.76 för den positiva klassen och 0.9 för den negativa klassen, där de positiva datapunkterna utgörs av ett par av pronomen och nominalfras som korefererar, och de negativa datapunkterna utgörs av par som inte korefererar.
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5

de, la Fuente Israël. "Putting pronoun resolution in context : the role of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in pronoun interpretation." Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015USPCC053.

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Cette thèse étudie les mécanismes qui influencent la résolution de pronoms dans des contextes ambigus. Nous proposons une analyse détaillée de la structure discursive ou la dépendance pronominale a été établie, qui explique pourquoi le rôle des facteurs jouant un rôle dans ce processus varie en fonction du contexte. Nous soutenons que l'unité discursive (UD) est le domaine optimal pour l'étude de la résolution de pronoms. Nous proposons une définition 'relationnelle' de l'UD selon laquelle la configuration des UD de la phrase dépend du contenu syntactique, sémantique et pragmatique de la proposition subordonnée et de la relation entre celle-ci et la proposition principale. Nous étudions deux types de subordonnées adverbiales : les non-relationnelles (temporelles), qui, selon nous, constituent une seule UD avec la proposition principale, et les relationnelles (causales), qui constituent une ud indépendante de la proposition principale. Nous soutenons que la configuration des UD de la phrase influence l'interprétation de pronoms et que les facteurs jouant un rôle dans ce processus ont un poids différent selon qu'ils se trouvent dans une UD ou au travers de deux UD. Nous défendons la thèse selon laquelle la résolution de pronoms est fortement basee sur le principe de cohérence discursive : la résolution des pronoms est guidée soit par le maintien (intra-UD), soit par l'établissement de la cohérence (inter-UD). Nous testons ces hypothèses avec une série d'expériences étudiant le rôle de la fonction grammaticale de l'antécédent, de son statut informationnel et des relations de cohérence entre deux propositions dans le contexte d'une ou deux UD, en anglais, espagnol et français
This thesis investigates the mechanisms involved in pronoun resolution in ambiguous contexts. Beyond the typical psycholinguistic approach that puts forward the factors that play a role in pronoun interpretation, we propose an in-depth analysis of the discourse structure of the context where the pronominal dependency is established in order to explain why the role of these factors varies as a function of the contextual circumstances. We argue that the discourse unit (DU) is the optimal domain for the study of pronoun resolution. We propose a "relational" definition of DU, whereby the DU configuration of a complex sentence depends on the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic content of the subordinate clause and its relation with the matrix clause. We analyze two types of adverbial adjuncts : non-relational (temporal) and relational adjuncts (causal). We argue that, while the former are processed as part of the same DU as the matrix clause, the latter are processed as separate dus from the matrix clause. We claim that the du configuration of the sentence has an effect on pronoun interpretation and that factors affecting resolution have a different weight according to whether they occur within a DU or across two DU. We propose that pronoun resolution searches a maximum of discourse coherence and that interpretation preferences come about in the process of maintaining coherence (intra-unit) or establishing coherence (inter-unit). We test these claims with a series of experiments that investigate the role of the syntactic function of the antecedent, its information status, and the coherence relations between propositions in the context of 1 or 2 DU, in english, french and spanish
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6

Odd, Jakobsson. "Pronoun translation between English and Icelandic." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för lingvistik och filologi, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-339069.

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A problem in machine translation is how to handle pronouns since languages use these differently, for example, in anaphoric reference. This essay examines what happens to the English third person pronouns he, she, and it when translated into Icelandic. Parallel corpora were prepared by tokenisation and subsequently the machine translation method word alignment was applied on the corpus. The results show that when a pronoun is used to refer to something outside the sentence (extra-sentential), this gives rise to major problems. Another problem encountered was the differences in the deictic strength between pronouns in English and Icelandic. One conclusion that can be drawn is that more research is needed as more reliable ways of handling pronouns are needed in translations.
Ett problem inom maskinöversättning är hur man ska hantera pronomen då språk använder dessa olika, exempelvis vid anaforisk referens. I den här uppsatsen undersöks vad som händer med engelska tredje persons pronomen he, she, och it när de har översatts till isländska. Parallella korpusar gjordes iordning genom tokenisering och därefter användes maskinöversättningsmetoden ordlänkning på korpusen. Resultaten visar att när pronomen används för att referera till något utanför satsen (extrasententiell) är det ett stort problem. Ett annat problem som påträffades gällde skillnader i deiktisk styrka mellan pronomen i engelska och isländska. En slutsats som kan dras är att mer forskning behövs då det behövs mer tillförlitliga sätt att hantera pronomen i översättningar.
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7

Huang, Jianqiao Caroline, and 黃劍橋. "Is the overt pronoun constraint learnable?" Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/212621.

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Studies on implicit learning have provided evidence for L2 acquisition of syntactic features, yet limited effort has been made to gauge the applicability of the implicit learning paradigm on syntactic structures that are posited by nativists as innate and need not to be learned. This thesis investigates the implicit learning of the Overt Pronoun Constraint(OPC), a claimed UG-derived constraint (White, 2003a,b; Hawkins, 2008)that prevents overt pronouns from taking quantified NPs as antecedents in null-argument languages(Montalbetti, 1983), and seeks alternative explanations to such knowledge from the usage-based perspective in SLA. In Experiment 1, participants’L1 prior knowledge of the binding constraint of the overt pronoun he in Mandarin Chinese and English was investigated respectively. Results show that Chinese participants accepted the bound variable interpretation of the pronoun他 (he) when the matrix subject (the subject of the main clause) was 有人someone, suggesting that the OPC may not be fully applicable in Chinese, and that the OPC may not be a universal phenomenon in all null-argument languages as claimed by nativists (e.g. Kanno, 1997). In terms of English participants, they rejected bound variable interpretations more often when the matrix subject of the sentence was a quantified NP than when it was a referring NP, indicating some biases of the interpretation towards the reference of the overt pronoun. Potential explanations for these cross-linguistic differences include the popularized use of singular they in English (Bhat, 2004) to refer to gender-ambiguous antecedents, and the degree of consistency in definiteness between the matrix subject and the pronoun as the sub-clause subject. In Experiment 2, Chinese L1 speakers were exposed to a semi-artificial language system that combined the binding constraint of the Japanese pronoun “kare” with Chinese to see whether they could acquire the OPC implicitly. The learning was measured by a timed Grammatical Judgment Test (GJT), and awareness was assessed by confidence ratings, source attributions and verbal reports. Results show that learning effect (both implicit and explicit) was observed in the Chinese group. In Experiment 3, Chinese participants were exposed to a semi-artificial language system that combined the overt pronoun binding constraint with their L2 English, and no learning effect was observed in this group, indicating that implicit learning could be affected by participants’L2 proficiency. In Experiment 4, the implicit learning of the pronoun constraint by English native speakers was investigated and L1 transfer effect was found in this experiment. To sum up, results show that the interpretation bias of the overt pronoun might be learned implicitly, although the learning process could be affected by participants’ prior linguistic knowledge. It also suggests that this bias might be learned without the assumption of UG existence, which show support for the usage-based approach in SLA.
published_or_final_version
English
Master
Master of Philosophy
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8

Devers, Maria Cecilia. "Pronoun processing in people with aphasia." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/3364.

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Background – People with aphasia (PWA) have been shown to present with aberrant use of pronominal words in the form of abnormal noun-to-pronoun ratios (e.g. over- or under-production), omissions, inappropriate or incorrect substitutions, and inappropriate reidentification of contextual antecedents. These error patterns have been identified in sentence and discourse comprehension and production. Although different processing accounts have been put forward to explain these variations and difficulties, it continues to remain unclear what specific contributing factors underlie the aberrant patterns of pronoun use observed. Aim – This thesis investigates how fluent and nonfluent PWA process pronouns and reflexives at different levels of communication. The primary research questions in this thesis focus on whether pronominal processing is impaired in PWA; and, if so, why are pronominal words difficult to process? Particular attention is drawn to how differential complexity factors in terms of increased syntactic, thematic, and structural (e.g. pronoun competition, reversibility, passive) complexity may influence pronominal processing in the aphasic linguistic system. Furthermore, this thesis aimed to expose whether or not different pronominal feature markers may be differentially processed or selectively impaired. Method – A series of language experiments were conducted using a study group of fluent and nonfluent people with aphasia and normal controls. The experiments investigated the following: 1) single-word pronominal comprehension, 2) pronominal comprehension in sentences, 3) pronoun comprehension in discourse, and 4) pronominal production in sentences. Further, a descriptive analysis was conducted to characterize patterns of pronoun use and cohesion in aphasic connected speech. The results of pronominal processing at single-word, sentence, and discourse levels from people with aphasia were compared to normal controls, and then between aphasia type. Results – The findings from the single-word experiment have shown that gender and number pronominal feature markers are differentially processed to person and case feature markers. The findings from the sentence and discourse experiments have exposed that people with aphasia interpret pronouns similarly to normal controls when processing pronouns as non-discourse-linked elements, and with significantly more difficulty than normal controls when processed as discourse-linked elements. These novel findings have advanced our understanding of pronominal processing in that the difficulty does not occur as a global impairment; rather, the difficulty is relevant to specific syntactic computations required for explicitly discourse-linked pronominal resolution.
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Seminck, Olga. "Cognitive Computational Models of Pronoun Resolution." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018USPCC184/document.

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La résolution des pronoms est le processus par lequel un pronom anaphorique est mis en relation avec son antécédent. Les humains en sont capables sans efforts notables en situation normale. En revanche, les systèmes automatiques ont une performance qui reste loin derrière, malgré des algorithmes de plus en plus sophistiqués, développés par la communauté du Traitement Automatique des Langues. La recherche en psycholinguistique a montré à travers des expériences qu'au cours de la résolution de nombreux facteurs sont pris en compte par les locuteurs. Une question importante se pose : comment les facteurs interagissent et quel poids faut-il attribuer à chacun d'entre eux ? Une deuxième question qui se pose alors est comment les théories linguistiques de la résolution des pronoms incorporent tous les facteurs. Nous proposons une nouvelle approche à ces problématiques : la simulation computationnelle de la charge cognitive de la résolution des pronoms. La motivation pour notre approche est double : d'une part, l'implémentation d'hypothèses par un système computationnel permet de mieux spécifier les théories, d’autre part, les systèmes automatiques peuvent faire des prédictions sur des données naturelles comme les corpus de mouvement oculaires. De cette façon, les modèles computationnels représentent une alternative aux expériences classiques avec des items expérimentaux construits manuellement. Nous avons fait plusieurs expériences afin d'explorer les modèles cognitifs computationnels de la résolution des pronoms. D'abord, nous avons simulé la charge cognitive des pronoms en utilisant des poids de facteurs de résolution appris sur corpus. Ensuite, nous avons testé si les concepts de la Théorie de l’Information sont pertinents pour prédire la charge cognitive des pronoms. Finalement, nous avons procédé à l’évaluation d’un modèle psycholinguistique sur des données issues d’un corpus enrichi de mouvements oculaires. Les résultats de nos expériences montrent que la résolution des pronoms est en effet multi-factorielle et que l’influence des facteurs peut être estimée sur corpus. Nos résultats montrent aussi que des concepts de la Théorie de l’Information sont pertinents pour la modélisation des pronoms. Nous concluons que l’évaluation des théories sur des données de corpus peut jouer un rôle important dans le développement de ces théories et ainsi amener dans le futur à une meilleure prise en compte du contexte discursif
Pronoun resolution is the process in which an anaphoric pronoun is linked to its antecedent. In a normal situation, humans do not experience much cognitive effort due to this process. However, automatic systems perform far from human accuracy, despite the efforts made by the Natural Language Processing community. Experimental research in the field of psycholinguistics has shown that during pronoun resolution many linguistic factors are taken into account by speakers. An important question is thus how much influence each of these factors has and how the factors interact with each-other. A second question is how linguistic theories about pronoun resolution can incorporate all relevant factors. In this thesis, we propose a new approach to answer these questions: computational simulation of the cognitive load of pronoun resolution. The motivation for this approach is two-fold. On the one hand, implementing hypotheses about pronoun resolution in a computational system leads to a more precise formulation of theories. On the other hand, robust computational systems can be run on uncontrolled data such as eye movement corpora and thus provide an alternative to hand-constructed experimental material. In this thesis, we conducted various experiments. First, we simulated the cognitive load of pronouns by learning the magnitude of impact of various factors on corpus data. Second, we tested whether concepts from Information Theory were relevant to predict the cognitive load of pronoun resolution. Finally, we evaluated a theoretical model of pronoun resolution on a corpus enriched with eye movement data. Our research shows that multiple factors play a role in pronoun resolution and that their influence can be estimated on corpus data. We also demonstrate that the concepts of Information Theory play a role in pronoun resolution. We conclude that the evaluation of hypotheses on corpus data enriched with cognitive data ---- such as eye movement data --- play an important role in the development and evaluation of theories. We expect that corpus based methods will lead to a better modelling of the influence of discourse structure on pronoun resolution in future work
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10

Cheung, Ka-yan Winnie. "Pronoun resolution in school-age children's reading." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 1994. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B36208887.

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Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1994.
"A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, April 29, 1994." Also available in print.
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11

MATOS, DENILSON PEREIRA DE. "THE PRONOUN LHE: IN THE PHRASE STRUCTURE." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2003. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=4420@1.

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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
Esta dissertação examina as classificações atribuídas ao pronome lhe, com base na gramática de valências. Segundo a tradição gramatical a nomeação do pronome é uma etapa suficiente como proposta de ensino. Neste trabalho, refuta- se esta conduta, à medida que se defende que - com relação à aprendizagem - importa para o aluno compreender, sobretudo, o funcionamento do pronome lhe na estrutura frásica. Do mesmo modo, é necessário depreender que este pronome pode desempenhar funções sintáticas distintas, as quais são justificadas através do comportamento do lhe e não por uma determinação meramente classificatória. O corpus selecionado privilegiou exemplos reunidos em livros didáticos, em gramáticas pedagógicas, no corpus do CETEMPúblico e do CETEMFolhaNILC/São Carlos. O resultado da análise revela que o pronome lhe é um genuíno complemento e que não basta classificar o elemento em questão, mas entender seu papel básico desempenhado em qualquer contexto.
This dissertation examines the classifications which are attributed to the pronoun lhe with the base on the basis Valence Grammar. According to the grammatical tradition the nomination for a pronoun is an adequate step as a teaching proposal However, this dissertation refutes this procedure by defending that, as far as learning concerned, what matters to the student is above all understand the function of the pronoun lhe in the phrase structure. At the same time, it is necessary to consider that this pronoun may have distinct syntactical functions, which are justified by structural collocation and not only by one merely classifying determination. The selected corpus favoured examples from didactic books, Pedagogical grammars, in the corpus of Public CETEM and of NIL/São Carlos. The result of the data analysis reveals that the pronoun lhe is a genuine complement and it is not sufficient to classify the aforementioned particle on debate, but to understand its role in the context it which it occurs.
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Guillou, Liane Kirsten. "Incorporating pronoun function into statistical machine translation." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/20448.

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Pronouns are used frequently in language, and perform a range of functions. Some pronouns are used to express coreference, and others are not. Languages and genres differ in how and when they use pronouns and this poses a problem for Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) systems (Le Nagard and Koehn, 2010; Hardmeier and Federico, 2010; Novák, 2011; Guillou, 2012; Weiner, 2014; Hardmeier, 2014). Attention to date has focussed on coreferential (anaphoric) pronouns with NP antecedents, which when translated from English into a language with grammatical gender, must agree with the translation of the head of the antecedent. Despite growing attention to this problem, little progress has been made, and little attention has been given to other pronouns. The central claim of this thesis is that pronouns performing different functions in text should be handled differently by SMT systems and when evaluating pronoun translation. This motivates the introduction of a new framework to categorise pronouns according to their function: Anaphoric/cataphoric reference, event reference, extra-textual reference, pleonastic, addressee reference, speaker reference, generic reference, or other function. Labelling pronouns according to their function also helps to resolve instances of functional ambiguity arising from the same pronoun in the source language having multiple functions, each with different translation requirements in the target language. The categorisation framework is used in corpus annotation, corpus analysis, SMT system development and evaluation. I have directed the annotation and conducted analyses of a parallel corpus of English-German texts called ParCor (Guillou et al., 2014), in which pronouns are manually annotated according to their function. This provides a first step toward understanding the problems that SMT systems face when translating pronouns. In the thesis, I show how analysis of manual translation can prove useful in identifying and understanding systematic differences in pronoun use between two languages and can help inform the design of SMT systems. In particular, the analysis revealed that the German translations in ParCor contain more anaphoric and pleonastic pronouns than their English originals, reflecting differences in pronoun use. This raises a particular problem for the evaluation of pronoun translation. Automatic evaluation methods that rely on reference translations to assess pronoun translation, will not be able to provide an adequate evaluation when the reference translation departs from the original source-language text. I also show how analysis of the output of state-of-the-art SMT systems can reveal how well current systems perform in translating different types of pronouns and indicate where future efforts would be best directed. The analysis revealed that biases in the training data, for example arising from the use of “it” and “es” as both anaphoric and pleonastic pronouns in both English and German, is a problem that SMT systems must overcome. SMT systems also need to disambiguate the function of those pronouns with ambiguous surface forms so that each pronoun may be translated in an appropriate way. To demonstrate the value of this work, I have developed an automated post-editing system in which automated tools are used to construct ParCor-style annotations over the source-language pronouns. The annotations are then used to resolve functional ambiguity for the pronoun “it” with separate rules applied to the output of a baseline SMT system for anaphoric vs. non-anaphoric instances. The system was submitted to the DiscoMT 2015 shared task on pronoun translation for English-French. As with all other participating systems, the automatic post-editing system failed to beat a simple phrase-based baseline. A detailed analysis, including an oracle experiment in which manual annotation replaces the automated tools, was conducted to discover the causes of poor system performance. The analysis revealed that the design of the rules and their strict application to the SMT output are the biggest factors in the failure of the system. The lack of automatic evaluation metrics for pronoun translation is a limiting factor in SMT system development. To alleviate this problem, Christian Hardmeier and I have developed a testing regimen called PROTEST comprising (1) a hand-selected set of pronoun tokens categorised according to the different problems that SMT systems face and (2) an automated evaluation script. Pronoun translations can then be automatically compared against a reference translation, with mismatches referred for manual evaluation. The automatic evaluation was applied to the output of systems submitted to the DiscoMT 2015 shared task on pronoun translation. This again highlighted the weakness of the post-editing system, which performs poorly due to its focus on producing gendered pronoun translations, and its inability to distinguish between pleonastic and event reference pronouns.
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13

Watson, Robin Montgomery. "Epicene Pronoun Use in Modern American English." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2010. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2358.

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Traditional prescriptive grammar for English states that the epicene or gender neutral pronoun for third person singular use is he. Research into speaker perceptions has clearly demonstrated that he is not perceived as neutral. Research has also shown traditionally proscribed epicene pronouns such as he or she and singular they to be commonly used, despite the long-standing proscriptions against them. The author examines the endurance of such proscribed options through the lens of markedness theory, considering the impact of cultural values on speakers' epicene pronoun choices. Gender in language is also considered, as well as Kuryłowicz‘s 4th Law of Analogy as a means for understanding patterns of language change. Second person pronoun change is considered as a model for understanding third person pronoun changes currently underway in Modern American English. The author conducts and reports on a corpus study designed to assess the current usage of three epicene pronouns in Modern American English, namely he or she and its variant she or he; one; and singular they. The results of the study are considered in terms of medium, spoken or written, and register, colloquial, standard, or formal. The study suggests that they is generally the preferred epicene pronoun, particularly in spoken language, but that one is the preferred epicene pronoun for formal writing.
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Kucuk, Dilek. "A Knowledge-poor Pronoun Resolution System For Turkish." Master's thesis, METU, 2005. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12606646/index.pdf.

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This thesis presents a knowledge-poor pronoun resolution system for Turkish which resolves third person personal pronouns and possessive pronouns. The system is knowledge-poor in the sense that it makes use of limited linguistic and semantic knowledge to resolve the pronouns. As pronoun resolution proposals for languages like English, French and Spanish, the core of the system is the constraints and preferences which are determined empirically. The system has four modules: sentence splitting, pronoun extraction, forming the list of candidate antecedents and determination of the antecedent. It takes a Turkish text as input and rewrites this text with the considered pronouns replaced with their proposed antecedents. In order to compare the success rate of the system, two different baseline algorithms are implemented. The original system is tested against these baseline algorithms on two sample Turkish texts from different sources. Some suggestions to improve the success rate of the system and to extend the domain of the system are also presented.
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15

Quinn, Heidi. "The distribution of pronoun case forms in English." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Linguistics, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/4850.

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This thesis investigates the influence of linguistic factors on the distribution of pronoun case forms in Modem English and argues that the alternation between nominative and objective pronoun forms is a surface phenomenon best captured in a probabilistic constraint-based approach, where constraints are weighted and the combined weight of constraint violations determines the probability of occurrence of a particular variant. I propose that the distribution of both weak and strong pronoun forms in English is affected by the interaction of two structural case constraints: Argument Case, which restricts the overt case form of structural arguments of a predicate; and Positional Case, which constrains the form of pronouns that appear as the specifier of an agreement-related functional head at Spell-Out. Pronouns that occupy surface positions not covered by the Positional Case constraint are further influenced by a Default Case constraint that calls for objective pronoun forms. A survey of data reported in existing studies suggests that all instances of pronoun case variation that cannot be given a purely case-based account occur in strong pronoun contexts. The consistent nominative/objective case distinction found with weak pronouns is due to their syntactic deficiency and the increasing importance of Positional Case in English. Unlike strong pronouns, weak pronouns must be licensed by an agreement-related functional head at Spell-Out, which means that they will generally be subject to the Positional Case constraint as well as the Argument Case constraint. Strong pronouns, on the other hand, tend to occur in positions not covered by Positional Case, which leaves them open to other influences. I present results from a written survey of 90 speakers of English, which indicate that strong pronoun forms no longer merely identify the structural case of a pronoun, but also code its position within a syntactic construction, and identify its morphosyntactic status as a strong pronoun. These additional functions of strong pronoun forms are captured in two Relative Positional Coding constraints and a set of Invariant Strong Form constraints. Variation occurs where the demands of the case constraints clash with the requirements of Relative Positional Coding and the tendency towards invariant strong pronoun forms. The case trends reported in existing studies suggest that Relative Positional Coding and the tendency towards invariant forms affects not only personal pronouns but also wh-pronouns. For personal pronouns, the emerging invariant forms are the objectives me, him, her, us, them, but for wh-pronouns, the emerging invariant forms are the nominatives who and whoever. As a result, the Invariant wh-form constraints clash with the three case constraints in different environments than the remaining Invariant Strong Form constraints. Discrepancies between the grouping of pronoun forms associated with stmctural case and the grouping of pronoun forms associated with Relative Positional Coding are largely responsible for the distributional differences between strong Isg (l/me) and non-lsg forms (he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them, who/whom). For the purposes of stmctural case, I groups with the non-lsg nominatives he, she, we, they, who, and me groups with the non-lsg objectives him, her, us, them, whom. For Relative Positional Coding, on the other hand, I patterns with him, her, us, them, whom, and me patterns with he, she, we, they, who. All of the trends identified in this study point to an increasing influence of surface position on pronoun case choice, which can be seen as a correlate of the shift from morphological to positionallicensing at the end of the Middle English period.
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Barbu, CaÌŒtaÌŒlina. "Bilingual pronoun resolution : experiments in English and French." Thesis, University of Wolverhampton, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.275818.

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17

Brunetto, Valentina. "The pronoun interpretation problem in Italian complex predicates." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2012. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3234/.

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This thesis explores the syntactic and pragmatic factors involved in the interpretation of clitic pronouns in Principle B contexts in both theoretical and acquisition perspective. The Pronoun Interpretation Problem, i.e. children’s apparent difficulty with the application of Principle B, defines a stage lasting up to about age 6: (1) Mama Beari is washing heri (50% correct at age 5;6) (2) Lo gnomoi lo*i lava (85% correct at age 4;8) Italian The gnome him.washes It is assumed that clitic pronouns like lo are exempted from interpretation problems because they can only be interpreted via binding. Romance children, however, show interpretation problems in complex sentences like (3): (3) La niñai lai ve bailar (64% correct at age 5;6) Sentences like the above, which involve Exceptional Case Marking, are the main focus of the present research. We maintain that (3) can only be explained if Principle B does not apply to these structures, as also proposed by Reinhart and Reuland’s (1993) and Reuland’s (2001) alternative binding theories. In order to explain (i) why clitics can only be interpreted via binding in simple sentences like (2) and (ii) why binding does not apply to (3), we draw on two fundamental assumptions: (i) binding effects in object cliticization are the output of the narrow syntactic derivation, specifically, of movement to the left edge of v*P; (ii) under a phase‐based model of syntactic derivations (Chomsky 2001), the binding domain is not the sentence, but the vP phase. We argue that the derivation in (3) contains an unbound occurrence of the pronoun, which allows children to covalue the matrix subject and the pronoun in pragmatics; such hypothesis receives support by our experimental finding that another complex predicate in Italian, causative faire‐par, triggers PIP. Ultimately, we suggest that the PIP can be ascribed to a unitary cause across languages, namely, the delayed pragmatic acquisition of local coreference.
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18

Choi, Jaehoon. "Pronoun-Noun Constructions and the Syntax of DP." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/318830.

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This dissertation is a study of the syntactic structure of noun phrases. In particular, this study focuses on the Pronoun-Noun Construction (PNC) which is composed of a non-possessive pronoun and a common noun as in We Tucsonans love rain. The core theme of this thesis lies in the idea that the PNC forms a natural class with the Demonstrative-Noun Construction (DNC). Though this idea is not radical (Giusti 1997, 2002), neither this claim nor its consequences has been adequately recognized or explored. This study advances this idea by demonstrating the existence of syntactic and semantic parallels between the PNC and the DNC. This hypothesis leads to a unified analysis of the two constructions: the pronoun merges in the specifier of an extended nominal projection and moves to [Spec, DP], on analogy with previous analyses of the structure of the DNC (Giusti 1997, 2002; Panagiotidis 2000; Rosen 2003). This proposed analysis necessitates reconsideration of important theoretical issues in syntax. In particular, the current analysis of the PNC implies a novel view of the DP-internal locus of person, which demarcates pronominal DPs from non-pronominal DPs. That is, the source of the valued person feature is the pronoun embedded in the DP, rather than the D head of the DP. This view of the locus of person leads in turn to a proposal of the agreement between PNC subject and predicate in which DP-internal agreement feeds DP-external agreement. Third, the proposed analysis of agreement provides a straightforward account for the optionality of the pronoun in the PNC across languages, if coupled with a pro-drop theory in which an empty category is postulated (e.g., Rizzi 1986). I justify the particular choice of a pro-drop theory by showing that the competing head-movement-based approaches to pro-drop (e.g., Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou 1998) not extendable to pro-drop in the PNC. Lastly, I show that the dislocation of demonstratives and pronouns to the left periphery of DP patterns with the wh-movement to the left periphery of CP in a given language. This constitutes a new piece of evidence for the parallelism between DP and CP. Evidence used in this thesis is primarily drawn from Modern Greek and English, with additional data from Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Modern Hebrew Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.
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19

All, Sara, and Frida Gustafsson. "Hen! Är inte det en sådan där feministisk grej...? : En studie om hur förskolepersonal uppfattar ett användande av det könsneutrala pronomenet hen inom förskolan." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Lärarutbildningen, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-19152.

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Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur förskolepersonal uppfattar en användning av det könsneutrala pronomenet hen inom förskolan. Våra frågeställningar är: ”Hur uppfattar förskolepersonalen möjligheten att använda hen som könsneutralt pronomen inom förskolan?” samt ”Anser förskolepersonalen att det finns några användningsområden där det könsneutrala pronomenet hen kan ingå?”. I denna undersökning användes en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod där vi utförde 11 kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer med förskolepersonal från fem förskolor. Den inspelade empirin dokumenterades med hjälp av diktafon som sedan transkriberades och analyserades. I studien framkom hur informanterna uppfattade genus och kön på förskolan. Vi tolkade att den uppfattningen speglade informanternas inställning till ordet hen. Undersökningen visade på i hur stor utsträckning förskolepersonalen använde sig av pronomen som hon/han. Vi tolkade att informanterna har utgått ifrån ett biologiskt och heteronormativt perspektiv när de talat om kön och könsidentitet. De uttryckte att de inte gjorde skillnad på "flickor" och "pojkar" och ansåg att de arbetade utifrån ett individperspektiv men istället påvisades motsatsen. Vår slutsats är att informanterna hade svårt att se användningsområden med ett könsneutralt pronomen.
The purpose of this study is to investigate how preschool employees perceive a usage of the gender-neutral pronoun hen within Swedish preschools. Our questions are: ”How do the preschool employees in this study perceive the possibility of using hen as a gender-neutral pronoun within the preschool environment?” and ”Do they think that there are any fields of usage of hen that can be applied in this environment?” This study was carried out with a qualitative method of investigation and 11 qualitative research interviews with preschool employees from five different preschools. The recorded empirical information was documented with a dictaphone whereupon the data was transcribed and analyzed. The study revealed how the informants perceived gender and sex in the preschool environment. We interpreted this perception as a reflection of the attitudes to the word hen among the informants. The results showed to what extent the preschool employees used pronouns like hon/han. We interpreted that the perspective among the informants when discussing gender and gender identity was biological and heteronormative. The informants claimed that they did not make any difference between girls and boys and they felt that they were working from an individual perspective. However, on the contrary, we proved the opposite. Our conclusion is that the informants found it difficult to see the range of application of the gender-neutral pronoun.
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AraÃjo, Francisco Jardes Nobre. "A variaÃÃo do TE/LHE em cartas pessoais de cearenses no sÃculo XX." Universidade Federal do CearÃ, 2014. http://www.teses.ufc.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=12192.

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FundaÃÃo de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do CearÃ
A variaÃÃo linguÃstica à um fenÃmeno universal que atinge todos os nÃveis da gramÃtica (CAMACHO, 2011). Em muitas lÃnguas, a classe dos pronomes, especialmente a dos chamados pronomes pessoais, à a que sofre mais variaÃÃo e a que mais se reorganiza dentro do sistema (MONTEIRO, 1994), embora esta costume ser constituÃda por um nÃmero relativamente pequeno de itens gramaticais, formando um inventÃrio fechado. Dentre as pessoas do discurso, à a 2 a que mais tem sido codificada de maneira variada, nÃo sà na lÃngua portuguesa, como em diversas outras lÃnguas indo-europeias, nas quais hà um sistema dual de pronomes para a 2 PESS.: as formas T e as formas V (derivadas, respectivamente, do uso do "tu" e do "vos" latinos) â as primeiras sÃo de uso familiar ou informal, enquanto as outras denotam polidez e distanciamento. A partir da terceira dÃcada do sÃculo XX, com o uso de "vocÃ" (forma V) em variaÃÃo com "tu" (forma T), todo o quadro pronominal da lÃngua, incluindo os possessivos de 2 PESS, passou a sofrer variaÃÃo. Partindo do pressuposto defendido pela SociolinguÃstica Variacionista, sobretudo com Labov (1978; 1983; 1994; 2008), de que a variaÃÃo linguÃstica se dà motivada tanto por fatores internos quanto externos ao sistema, o presente trabalho busca analisar a variaÃÃo das formas "te" e "lhe" como pronomes de 2 PESS. SING., tanto na funÃÃo de acusativo, quanto na de dativo, no portuguÃs brasileiro escrito do sÃculo XX. Para isso, utiliza uma amostra de 186 cartas pessoais escritas entre 1940 e 2000, obtidas numa busca entre os habitantes do municÃpio de QuixadÃ, no SertÃo Central cearense. As cartas coletadas sÃo de pessoas do povo, isto Ã, nÃo de profissionais da linguagem, tendo sido trocadas entre amigos ou parentes. Como metodologia, estratifica a amostra em trÃs perÃodos do sÃculo XX nos quais as cartas foram escritas (anos 1940-50, anos 1960-70 e anos 1980-90) e por gÃnero da autoria (cartas de homens e cartas de mulheres) e submete os dados ao programa computacional GoldVarb X para obter dados estatÃsticos e interpreta esses dados à luz das teorias da SociolinguÃstica Variacionista. Os resultados da pesquisa demonstraram que a variaÃÃo das formas pronominais "te"/"lhe" à condicionada por fatores linguÃsticos, como a forma do verbo, a posiÃÃo do pronome e a presenÃa de forma V antes de "te" ou "lhe", e que, apesar de mais frequente do que o uso de "te", o uso de "lhe" sofreu declÃnio ao longo dos trÃs perÃodos de tempo analisados.
The linguistic variation is a universal phenomenon that affects all levels of grammar (CAMACHO, 2011). In many languages, of all the word classes, the pronouns, especially the so-called personal pronouns, are more inclined to variation and to rearrangement in the system (MONTEIRO, 1994), although they use to be constituted by a relatively small number of grammatical items, restricted to a kind of closed inventory. The 2nd PERS SING is which more has been coded in a variant way, not only in the Portuguese language, as in many other Indo-European languages, in which there is a dual system of pronouns for 2nd PERS: the T-forms and the V-forms (derived, respectively, from the use of Latin "tu" and "vos") â the first are used both familiarly and informally, while others denote politeness and distance. From the third decade of the twentieth century, with the use of "vocÃ" (a V-form) in variation with "tu" (a T-form), the entire pronominal frame of the Portuguese language, including the 2nd PERS possessive, began to undergo change. Assuming the ideas defended by Variationist Sociolinguistics, especially with William Labov (1978, 1983, 1994, 2008), that the linguistic variation occurs motivated by factors both internal and external to the system, this work aims to analyze the variation of forms "te" and "lhe" as 2nd PERS SING, both in accusative and in dative function, in Brazilian Portuguese written in the twentieth century. It uses a sample of 186 personal letters written between 1940 and 2000, obtained in a search among the inhabitants of the town of QuixadÃ, in the middle of the state of CearÃ. The letters are collected from common people, that is, not from language professionals, having been exchanged between friends or relatives. As methodology, the sample was stratified into three periods of the twentieth century in which the letters were written (years 1940âs and 50âs, years 1960âs and 70âs, years 1980âs and 90âs) and gender of authorship (letters from men and letters from women) and submits the data to the computer program GoldVarb X in order to obtain statistical results and interpret these results in light of theories of Sociolinguistics Variationist. The survey results showed that variation of the pronoun forms "te"/"lhe" is conditioned by linguistic factors, such as the form of the verb, the position of the pronoun and the presence of a V-form before "te" or "lhe", and that, although "lhe" was more used than "te" in the letters, its use has declined over the three periods of time analyzed.
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21

Mathurin, Elise. "IT et la question de la référence." Thesis, Aix-Marseille, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018AIXM0410.

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Cette thèse de linguistique anglaise se propose d'étudier l'ensemble des usages référentiels et non référentiels de IT. Diverses questions sont examinées. L'objectif premier de ce travail est de tenter de définir le concept de référence. La question du statut de "pronom" de IT est également étudiée. Enfin, les différents emplois de IT (anaphorique, cataphorique, déictique, non référentiel, etc.) sont analysés dans l'ensemble des constructions où il se rencontre (extraposition du sujet et de l’objet, clivée, dislocation à gauche et à droite, expressions idiomatiques, slogans publicitaires, etc.). L'hypothèse avancée est que le statut référentiel de IT ne peut simplement se scinder en deux catégories : référentiel ou non référentiel. Il semble plutôt que la référence soit à envisager comme un continuum ou gradient allant du plus fortement référentiel vers le plus faiblement référentiel
This thesis in English linguistics studies all the uses of IT, whether referential or non-referential. Firstly, this work tries to define the concept of reference as precisely as possible. The status of IT as a "pronoun" is also analysed. Moreover, all the uses of IT (anaphoric, cataphoric, deictic, non-referential, etc.) are analysed in a wide variety of sentences (subject and object extraposition, it-cleft, left and right dislocation, idioms, advertising slogans, etc.) This thesis claims that the referential status of IT cannot simply be divided in two categories : referential or non-referential. On the contrary, it seems that reference can be calculated on a continuum or scale from strongly referential to weakly referential
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22

Elrod, Elizabeth J. "Give us a Gender Neutral Pronoun, Yo!: The Need for and Creation of a Gender Neutral, Singular, Third Person, Personal Pronoun." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/200.

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This essay outlines the problems associated with the history and current absence of a gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun in the English language. The combination of the social and grammatical consequences of this language gap results in pronoun choices that are either politically incorrect or verbose. Experts’ attempts to fill this language gap have failed to take root on any widespread basis; but, interestingly, middle school children in Baltimore, Maryland created and started using “yo” as their own gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun. Stotko and Troyer’s (2007) study on this development sheds some light on exactly how students use “yo” as a third-person pronoun and proposes some theories regarding the origin of this change in language. This spontaneously produced gender-neutral pronoun has gained as much recognition as many gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronouns proposed by linguistic experts, perhaps as a result of children’s unique understanding of and ability to create language. This recent development indicates that common English speakers will likely spontaneously generate a solution to the current pronoun gap, although this will probably take some time to occur.
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23

Patterson, Clare. "The role of structural and discourse-level cues during pronoun resolution." Phd thesis, Universität Potsdam, 2013. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2014/7128/.

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Pronoun resolution normally takes place without conscious effort or awareness, yet the processes behind it are far from straightforward. A large number of cues and constraints have previously been recognised as playing a role in the identification and integration of potential antecedents, yet there is considerable debate over how these operate within the resolution process. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the parser handles multiple antecedents in order to understand more about how certain information sources play a role during pronoun resolution. I consider how both structural information and information provided by the prior discourse is used during online processing. This is investigated through several eye tracking during reading experiments that are complemented by a number of offline questionnaire experiments. I begin by considering how condition B of the Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981; 1986) has been captured in pronoun processing models; some researchers have claimed that processing is faithful to syntactic constraints from the beginning of the search (e.g. Nicol and Swinney 1989), while others have claimed that potential antecedents which are ruled out on structural grounds nonetheless affect processing, because the parser must also pay attention to a potential antecedent’s features (e.g. Badecker and Straub 2002). My experimental findings demonstrate that the parser is sensitive to the subtle changes in syntactic configuration which either allow or disallow pronoun reference to a local antecedent, and indicate that the parser is normally faithful to condition B at all stages of processing. Secondly, I test the Primitives of Binding hypothesis proposed by Koornneef (2008) based on work by Reuland (2001), which is a modular approach to pronoun resolution in which variable binding (a semantic relationship between pronoun and antecedent) takes place before coreference. I demonstrate that a variable-binding (VB) antecedent is not systematically considered earlier than a coreference (CR) antecedent online. I then go on to explore whether these findings could be attributed to the linear order of the antecedents, and uncover a robust recency preference both online and offline. I consider what role the factor of recency plays in pronoun resolution and how it can be reconciled with the first-mention advantage (Gernsbacher and Hargreaves 1988; Arnold 2001; Arnold et al., 2007). Finally, I investigate how aspects of the prior discourse affect pronoun resolution. Prior discourse status clearly had an effect on pronoun resolution, but an antecedent’s appearance in the previous context was not always facilitative; I propose that this is due to the number of topic switches that a reader must make, leading to a lack of discourse coherence which has a detrimental effect on pronoun resolution. The sensitivity of the parser to structural cues does not entail that cue types can be easily separated into distinct sequential stages, and I therefore propose that the parser is structurally sensitive but not modular. Aspects of pronoun resolution can be captured within a parallel constraints model of pronoun resolution, however, such a model should be sensitive to the activation of potential antecedents based on discourse factors, and structural cues should be strongly weighted.
Pronomenauflösung erfolgt normalerweise scheinbar mühelos und ohne bewusste Anstrengung. Jedoch ist die Verarbeitung von pronominalen Referenzen aus linguistischer Sicht ein hochkomplexer Prozess. Durch unterschiedliche wissenschaftliche Studien wurden bereits zahlreiche Faktoren ermittelt, die bei der Pronomenauflösung eine Rolle spielen, allerdings herrscht weitgehend noch keine Einigkeit darüber, wie genau diese Faktoren die Verarbeitung von Pronomen beeinflussen. Ziel dieser Dissertation ist es zu untersuchen, wie der Leser/Hörer mit Pronomen umgeht, denen mehrere Antezedenten zugeordnet werden können, um zu verstehen, welche Rolle bestimmte Informationsquellen in der Verarbeitung von Pronomen spielen. Besondere Beachtung findet dabei, wie strukturelle Eigenschaften sowie Informationen aus dem vorangegangenen Diskurs für die Suche nach einem passenden Antezedenten benutzt werden. Die angewandte Untersuchungsmethode der vorliegenden Dissertation ist Eye-tracking during reading, ergänzt mit verschiedenen offline-Fragebögen. Die Experimente erforschen die Rolle der folgenden Aspekte in der Verarbeitung von Pronomen: Prinzip B der Bindungstheorie (Chomsky 1981; 1986), Koreferenz und Variablenbindung laut der Primitives of Binding Hypothese (Reuland 2001, Koornneef 2008), Antezedentenreihenfolge im Satz, und Diskursstatus des Antezedents. Obwohl es zeigt sich, dass der Hörer/Leser sensibel für subtile Veränderungen in der syntaktischen Konfiguration ist, wie z.B. für die Reihenfolge der Antezedenten im Satz und für den Diskursstatus des Antezedenten, gibt es keinen Nachweis dafür, dass Variablenbindung zeitlich vor Koreferenz erfolgt. Einige Aspekte der Auflösung pronominaler Referenzen können in einem parallel constraints model erfasst werden, allerdings sollte so ein Modell strukturelle Informationen stark gewichten und sensitiv sein für die Aktivierung potenzieller Antezedenten aufgrund von Diskursfaktoren.
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24

Willie, MaryAnn. "Navajo pronouns and obviation." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/185691.

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In this thesis the nature of argument structure in the Navajo sentence is identified, with particular focus on the complex system of incorporated pronouns, and anaphora and obviation in the language. It is argued that Navajo is a pronominal argument language, where arguments are incorporated pronouns, while nominals are adjuncts. Descriptions of syntactic devices for marking co- and disjoint reference of arguments, within the simple clause, across the clauses in complex sentences, and in discourse contexts are given. These devices include: the yi/bi- alternation, which I identify as a voice contrast confined to sentences with all third person arguments; the "fourth" person, used for obviation and for deference, and the parallel processing convention.
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25

Cruz, Adilson Góis da. "A expressão do argumento dativo no português escrito: um estudo comparativo entre o português brasileiro e o português europeu." Universidade de São Paulo, 2007. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8142/tde-27112009-140208/.

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Esta dissertação estuda, em uma perspectiva comparativa entre o português brasileiro (PB) e o português europeu (PE), a representação do argumento dativo de terceira pessoa em um corpus de língua escrita formal, constituído pelas traduções brasileira e lusitana feitas diretamente do espanhol do romance Cem anos de solidão de Gabriel Garcia Marques. A análise detém-se ao comportamento de três variantes do dativo o clítico lhe/lhes, os PPs a/para ele(s)/ela(s) e o pronome nulo nos contextos de predicados ditransitivos, inacusativos, causativos, incoativos e inergativos. Dentro do quadro teórico da Teoria Gerativa e da Teoria da Variação, pretende-se explicitar diferenças entre o PB e o PE que possam corroborar, ou não, a hipótese de que essas duas variedades do português apresentam gramáticas distintas.
This dissertation discusses, in a comparative perspective between Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and European Portuguese (EP), the expression of the dative argument of the third person in a formal writing corpus constituted by the Brazilian and European translations directly from Spanish of the book A Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marques. The analysis considers the behaviour of three dative variants the clitic lhe/lhe, the PPs a/para ele(s)/ela(s) and the null pronoun in ditransitive, inaccusative, causative, incoative and inergative predicates. In the context of the Generative Theory and the Variation Theory, the goal is to show differences between BP and EP that can confirm, or not, the hypothesis that the two variants of Portuguese reveal distinct grammars.
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26

Zhang, Min. "A contrastive study of demonstratives in English and Chinese." Virtual Press, 1991. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/774752.

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This dissertation is a contrastive study of the semantics, pragmatics, and discourse functions of demonstratives in English and Chinese.It is shown that there is a metaphorical relationship between the basic semantic properties of demonstratives and their various uses in the two languages. The proximal demonstrative tends to be used for spatial, temporal, or emotional closeness, or for a foregrounded referent, whereas the distal demonstrative is usually used for spatial, temporal, or emotional remoteness, or for a backgrounded referent. However, details of the metaphorical extensions in the two languages may vary. Functional differences between demonstrative pronouns and neuter pronouns in English and Chinese are also discussed. It is shown that demonstrative pronouns tend to code a higher degree of topic discontinuity or topic change, and neuter pronouns a greater degree of topic continuity in the two languages.In addition to contributing to an understanding of the basic factors governing the uses of demonstratives in English and Chinese, which could be used as a basis for further cross linguistic study, this research should also have some pedagogical value for teaching both English and Chinese as foreign languages.
Department of English
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27

Thiago, Irene Soares. "Da tradução ou não de pronomes e partículas pronominais do Italiano ao Português: algumas escolhas feitas por dois tradutores." Universidade de São Paulo, 2016. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8148/tde-16052016-150714/.

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Este estudo é movido pela curiosidade quanto a como se resolvem, nas traduções do italiano para o português, questões de colocação pronominal. Encontramos, normal e frequentemente, na língua italiana, principalmente na língua falada, pronomes cujos equivalentes em português existem em gramáticas normativas da língua portuguesa, mas que, na prática, não são utilizados pelos falantes e escritores brasileiros. Encontramos, também, na língua italiana, um significativo número de verbos pronominais (como esserci, volerci, averne etc.) e um considerável número de verbos pronominais múltiplos (como andarsene, farcela, fregarsene etc.) que, juntamente com esses pronomes, constituem, para os professores brasileiros de italiano língua estrangeira (LE), elementos difíceis de trabalhar na sala de aula. Além disso, tais elementos também podem dificultar o trabalho dos tradutores, que devem fazer determinadas escolhas ao traduzi-los para o português. Como são traduzidos os pronomes combinados do italiano nas versões brasileiras? Será que os portugueses, que possuem, por exemplo, tais pronomes utilizam-nos em todos os casos em que os encontramos nos textos de partida? E as partículas pronominais são simplesmente eliminadas no texto de chegada ou são substituídas? Tais aspectos, se observados e organizados, podem levar a uma melhor compreensão das duas línguas em contato e dar subsídios a estudantes, professores e tradutores. Pensando nessa dificuldade, esta pesquisa buscou e listou alguns autores e obras disponíveis para consulta e analisou um corpus com cento e sessenta e três ocorrências de pronomes no italiano, mais sete acréscimos de pronomes no português brasileiro (PB) e/ou português europeu (PE), partindo do romance Uno, nessuno e centomila de Luigi Pirandello e suas respectivas traduções em PB e PE. Nosso objetivo consiste em encontrar respostas úteis à diminuição do estranhamento, por parte de um italiano, que escuta, de um brasileiro, frases sem pronomes (ainda que o italiano as entenda) e/ou a sensação de inadequação e, até mesmo, de desconforto, por parte de um brasileiro, ao produzir frases com todos os pronomes. No corpus analisado, temos uma amostra das escolhas e respectivas traduções propostas pelos tradutores para casos de pronomes reflexivos, de pronomes pessoais do caso reto, de pronomes pessoais do caso oblíquo, de pronomes combinados e de partículas pronominais ne, ci e vi, com manutenções, omissões, trocas por outros pronomes (possessivos, retos, oblíquos, demonstrativos) e, até mesmo, uma espécie de compensação numérica com a inclusão de palavra inexistente no texto de partida.
This study is conducted by the curiosity on how pronoun collocations issues are solved in translations from Italian to Portuguese. We usually and normally find in the Italian, especially in the spoken language, pronouns whose equivalent in are given in normative grammars of the Portuguese language, but that are not used in pratice neither in written nor in the spoken language. We also find in the Italian language, a significant number of pronominal verbs (as esserci, volerci, averne etc.) and a considerable number of multiple pronominal verbs (as andarsene, farcela, fregarsene etc.) which are also difficult to work in the classroom. Furthermore, these elements can also hamper the work of translators, who must make certain choices to translate them into Portuguese. The question then arises, how are Italian combined pronouns rendered in Brazilian and European Portuguese translations? Do European Portuguese speakers, who use such pronouns, use them in all cases in which we find them in source texts? Are combined pronouns simply eliminated in the target text or are they replaced? Such aspects, when observed and organized, can lead to a better understanding of the two languages in contact and give grants to students, teachers and translators. Considering this difficulty, this research sought and listed some authors and available works for consultation and examined a corpus of one hundred sixty-three occurrences of pronouns in Italian, plus seven uses of pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and/or European Portuguese (EP), based on the novel Uno, nessuno and centomila by Luigi Pirandello and its corresponding translations into PB and PE. Our objective is to find useful answers for the decrease of strangeness of an Italian listening to a Brazilian who is using sentences without pronouns (although the Italian understands them) and/or the feeling of inadequacy and even discomfort of a Brazilian to produce sentences with all the pronouns. In the analyzed corpus, we have a sample of the choices made by translators to translate reflexive, personal subjective pronouns and objective pronouns, combined pronouns and the pronominal particles ne, ci e vi, showing cases of maintenance, omission, exchanges for other pronouns (possessive, subjective, objective, demonstrative) and even a kind of numerical compensation with the inclusion of a full noun not occurring in the source text.
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28

Vestin, Jonas. "What is the English counterpart to the Swedish pronoun man?" Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för humaniora, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-8217.

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The main aim of this essay has been to generate an understanding of the distinct difference of the Swedish indefinite pronoun man and the English counterpart. It is established that man provides an extraordinary feeling of generality in its context. The materials used to do this consist of two parts. Firstly, four different grammar books describing how the translation from Swedish to English should be done. Secondly, how a translator deals with the issue of not having a corresponding component in the English language. This essay also incorporates theory of translation to identify other problems a translator might get confronted with.
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29

Romdenh-Romluc, Komarine. "First-person thought and the first-person pronoun : a critique." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.289654.

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30

Rudaitis, Rimas. "Morfonologiniai įvardžių kirčiavimo pagrindai." Master's thesis, Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network (LABT), 2006. http://vddb.library.lt/obj/LT-eLABa-0001:E.02~2006~D_20060620_114319-94830.

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The system of stressing pronouns is describing based on accentual characteristic of five morphemes. Three main – accentual might, accentual classification and accent, other – intonation and attraction – are subsidiary accentual characteristics of morphemes. Stressing of pronouns has no sixth – characteristic of vowel gradation. Accentual classification of primary pronouns is based on linguistic and pragmatic factors. There are three main stressing types: stable, unstable and individual. Almost for all primary pronouns, with few exceptions, characteristic weaker stem. Many primary pronouns has distinctive stressing. Primary pronouns are the most frequent. The most frequent pronoun in Lithuanian language is pronoun he. It is used different forms. Derivatives are classified taking into account formants of formation or accentual characteristics of other affixes. Between suffixal pronouns prevail strengthening and weakening stressed suffixes. Suffixal pronouns have suffixes of several types. From the respect of use suffixal pronouns are rare than primary, frequent pronouns are only few. Ending and compound pronouns are only few. It is rather hard to establish their regularity of accentual characteristics. For stressing pronouns it is important their component junction of morphemes. Stressing of pronouns, which grow together, depends on accentual characteristic of primary words. Many of pronouns, which grow together, are used very rare. The components of combinational pronouns... [to full text]
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31

Lima, Alisson Hudson Veras. "A influÃncia da retomada e da distÃncia sintÃtica no processamento de pronomes plenos e nulos em portuguÃs brasileiro." Universidade Federal do CearÃ, 2015. http://www.teses.ufc.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=15792.

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FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico
Nesta dissertaÃÃo, investigamos como nomes repetidos, pronomes plenos e pronomes nulos sÃo processados quando exercem a funÃÃo de expressÃes correferentes em portuguÃs brasileiro (PB). Gordon, Grosz & Gilliom (1993) comprovaram que os nomes repetidos sÃo mais difÃceis de serem processados quando comparados aos pronomes plenos que disputam a posiÃÃo de sujeito anafÃrico de uma entidade previamente introduzida no discurso, gerando um efeito por eles nomeado de âRepeated Name Penaltyâ (RNP). Por sua vez, Gerlomini-Lezama (2008) testou o mesmo tipo de correferÃncia expandindo a teoria para o uso do pronome nulo em espanhol, que à uma lÃngua pro-drop, diferentemente do inglÃs e, por sua vez, comprovou que, ao menos nesta lÃngua, os pronomes nulos sÃo mais facilmente processados do que nomes repetidos, gerando o efeito por ele nomeado de âOvert Pronoun Penaltyâ (OPP). Em PB, a RNP tem sido objeto de discussÃo entre muitos estudiosos e bastante reafirmada por LeitÃo (2005) e colaboradores (QUEIROZ & LEITÃO, 2008; LEITÃO & SIMÃES, 2011, inter alia). Tomados em conjunto, todos esses estudos tÃm corroborado a aceitaÃÃo do efeito da RNP em PB nÃo somente na posiÃÃo de sujeito, mas tambÃm na posiÃÃo de objeto, sem distanciar o antecedente de sua retomada anafÃrica. Entretanto, Maia e Cunha-Lima (2011, 2012) encontraram evidÃncias contrÃrias aos estudos prÃvios sobre a RNP em PB, indicando a ocorrÃncia da OPP em PB. Trabalhamos com a hipÃtese de que a distÃncia exerce papel significativo durante o processamento, atribuindo ao nome repetido o status de expressÃo referencial em detrimento dos pronomes pleno e/ou nulos, tanto para sujeito simples quanto para sujeitos. A anÃlise conjunta dos resultados do experimento sugere que (i) na regiÃo crÃtica, os pronomes nulos sÃo processados mais facilmente do que pronomes plenos e nomes repetidos, e (ii) que a distÃncia entre o antecedente e sua expressÃo referencial nÃo desempenha papel significativo durante o processamento correferencial.
In this dissertation we investigated how repeated names, overt pronouns and null pronouns are corefentially processed in Brazilian Portuguese (PB). Gordon, Grosz & Gilliom (1993) have shown that repeated names are more difficult to be processed compared to the overt pronouns vying for the subject anaphoric position of an entity previously introduced in discourse, creating an effect that it has appointed of "repeated name penalty "(RNP). In turn, Gerlimini-Lezama (2008) tested the same type coreference to expand the theory for the use of the null pronoun in Spanish, which is a pro-drop language, unlike English, and in turn, has shown that, at least this language, null pronouns are more easily processed than repeated names, creating the effect that he named "overt pronoun penalty" (OPP). In PB, RNP has been the subject of discussion among many scholars and quite reaffirmed by LeitÃo (2005) and colloboraters (Queiroz & LeitÃo, 2008; LeitÃo & SimÃes, 2011, inter alia). Taken together, these studies have corroborated acceptance of the effect of RNP in PB not only in the subject position, but also the object position. However, Maia & Cunha Lima (2011, 2012) presented evidence contradictory to previous studies on the RNP in PB, indicating the occorence of OPP in PB. We work with the hypotheses that the distance has a significant role during processing, giving the name repeated the status of reference expression at the expense of overt and/or null pronouns for both simple subject and composed subjects. The analysis of the experimental results suggest that (i) at the critical region the null pronouns are processed more easily than overt pronouns and repeated names, and (ii) the distance between the antecedent and its referring expression plays no significant role in the coreferential processing.
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32

Emond, Bruno. "Niveaux de représentation et processus cognitifs dans l'interprétation des pronoms personnels en français." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28734.

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The study of cognitive representations and processes involved in personal pronoun interpretation allows one to investigate on a small scale the cognitive representations and processes of discourse comprehension. A review of the literature identifies four fundamental processes in personal pronoun interpretation: (A) syntactic constrains application, (B) gender, number, and person matching, (C) inferential selection, and, (D) discourse focus updating. A preliminary data collection from human performance has shown the importance of the application of syntactic constrains for pronoun interpretation. However, the level of specification for the representations and processes attained by the literature review and the preliminary experiment is not sufficient, therefore justifying the development of a more elaborate on-line pronoun interpretation process model. In order to attain a better model of the personal pronoun interpretation processes, the research approach has been to: (A) establish a strong link between the text linguistic features on one hand, and the cognitive representations and processes on the other hand through the construction-interpretation model, and (B) to reduce the gap between the experimental task specificity, and the general cognitive representations and processes assumed by the model. A second experiment, using experimental texts implementing a combination of many levels of representation, verified most of the model predictions. The model of the four interpretation processes as well as the empirical evidences support a point of view where the interpretation process for personal pronouns ends at various points during reading. The compound process of syntactic analysis and progressive semantic interpretation as well as the component processes associated with specific levels of representation explain the partiality of the pronoun interpretation process. The construction-interpretation model shows that the location of the execution of the interpretatio
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33

George, Christina. "Revised syntactic attributes for relative cause simplification and relative pronoun correction." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/27245.

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Using previous work for resolving relative clause attachment ambiguities as a starting point, we expanded an existing framework consisting mainly of semantic features to include new syntactic features. We used these new syntactic attributes on their own, as well as with the existing ones in two separate applications. First, we examined sentences containing restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses and classified them according to whether the relative clauses could be removed to simplify the sentences. In the second application, we corrected the selection of relative pronouns in French to English machine translations. To test our revised syntactic attributes, we devised a two-stage system. In the first stage, we used binary classification to perform an initial screening of sentences, followed by a more detailed classification in the second stage. We then evaluated the performance of each stage as well as the system as a whole. In each application, we made specific adjustments and succeeded in demonstrating that the combination of syntactic and semantic attributes was more effective in these classification tasks than relying on one type of attribute exclusively.
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34

Wilson, Garry. "An investigation of 'minimalist' and 'constructionist' processing strategies in pronoun comprehension." Thesis, Durham University, 1995. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5321/.

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This thesis investigated the use of 'minimal' (gender/number information, linguistic conjunction and thematic role occupancy) and 'non-minimal' information (spatial information and description type - proper name vs. role name i.e. the waiter) in the comprehension of pronouns, (McKoon and Ratcliff, 1992).Fourteen experiments were conducted. Seven experiments measured clause-by-clause reading times; seven measured frequency of reference in sentence continuation tasks. Six reading time experiments used materials pronominally unambiguous on the basis of the gender and number information. Experiments one to twelve also manipulated the spatial location of the characters (together or apart). Experiments five, six, seven, eight, eleven and twelve also manipulated noun phrase conjunction (by the use of 'and'), proposed to be a cue to plural pronoun use (Hielscher and Musseler, 1990; Sanford and Lockhart 1991). Experiment thirteen was a reading time task using pronominally ambiguous sentences. Characters' thematic roles and description type were manipulated. Experiment fourteen was a sentence continuation task version of experiment thirteen. For experiments one to twelve, the predictions were that subjects making use of a constructionist processing strategy would read plural references faster when characters were described as being together rather titan apart. In continuation tasks, it was predicted that subjects would make more plural references to characters described as being together rather than apart. In experiment thirteen it was predicted that subjects making use of a minimalist strategy would read references faster depending on the character's thematic role occupancy rather than on description type. In experiment fourteen it was predicted that subjects using a minimalist strategy would make more references to characters on the basis of thematic role occupancy rather than description type. The results did not consistently support either the minimalist or constructionist hypotheses. Subjects appeared instead to be making use of different strategies as a function of task demands. This interpretation is in line with work by Garnham et al (1992), McKoon and Ratcliff (1992), and Oakhill et al (1989).
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35

Yamada, Kazumi. "The overt pronoun constraint and null objects in second language Japanese." Thesis, University of Essex, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.418415.

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36

Biesen, Judith N. "You and I—pronoun use and communication patterns in anxious couples." Scholarly Commons, 2012. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/313.

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Studies have identified links between anxiety and couple communication, anxiety and pronoun use as well as pronoun use and communication. The current study investigated the association between pronoun use and communication in the context of anxiety. One hundred and fifteen couples rated their communication with their partner and participated in two seven-minute problem-solving discussions, which were analyzed using a linguistic word count program. Results indicate that the use of I was not associated with ratings of communication whereas use of You by either partner was related to lower ratings of communication by both men and women. Moreover, the results of several moderation analyses suggest the association between women's (but not men's) ratings of communication and men's and women's use of You and men's I was moderated by both men's and women's anxiety. Women's anxiety moderated the relationship between both partner's use of You and women's rating of couple communication and men's anxiety moderated the relationship between men's use of You and I and women's view of couple communication. The hypothesis that pronoun use mediates the relationship between anxiety and couple communication was not supported. Implications are discussed.
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Pappas, Panayiotis A. "Weak object pronoun placement in later medieval and early Modern Greek /." The Ohio State University, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1486399451962976.

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38

Freeman, David. "Cues and Miscues: A Study of How Readers Assign Pronoun Reference." University of Arizona Linguistics Circle, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/226556.

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Theories for the reading process that have been advanced can be roughly grouped into two related types: word recognition theories and more general psycholinguistic theories. The first type claims that reading involves recognizing words. This may be either the ability to recognize sight words or the ability to determine letter -to -sound correspondences in order to translate visual symbols into phonological information that can be processed by the oral language processing system. The second type of theory is based on the idea that reading involves processing perceptual input directly during cycles of sampling, inferring, predicting, confirming or disconfirming, correcting, and integrating. The first type of theory gives primary importance to visual information or phonic recordings during reading. The second approach claims that what goes on "behind the eyes ", the reader's background knowledge and cognitive strategies for inferring and predicting, is fully as important as what is printed on the page. While it is not possible to observe directly what goes on during silent reading, evidence from oral reading provides support for the more general psycholinguistic view. Readers' observed responses to text often vary from the expected responses. That is, readers often omit, insert, reverse, or substitute words or phrases for the words or phrases in the text. Consider the following two actual cases of substitution. The words the reader substituted are written over the text. (1) Jack Jones always went (wants) around in overalls or a sun suit (set). (2) Mr Barnaby talked some more with my folks. "It's settled I then," he (I) said as he was leaving. In (1) the substitutions are perceptually (both visually and phonetically) similar to the expected responses. Advocates of the word recognition approach could account for the substitutions by claiming that the reader did not look carefully enough at the printed symbols or by saying that the reader confused similar symbols. That is, the reader made mistakes in recognizing or in sounding out these words. In contrast those theorists working within a psycholinguistic framework would claim that the reader made use of syntactic, semantic, grapho-phonic, and pragmatic knowledge during the reading. The first substitution is of a verb for a verb, and the second is a noun for a noun. Thus, the reader used syntactic knowledge. The use of syntactic cues is especially evident in the fact that "wants" is properly inflected to agree with the subject. In addition, the reader used semantic knowledge, knowledge that "sun" and "set" frequently cooccur. Finally, the reader used grapho-phonic knowledge (knowledge of either graphemes or phonemes or a combination of the two) because the expected and observed responses look and sound alike. However, the reader made some incorrect predictions and attended more at times to perceptual cues than to the meaning of the sentence. Both theories, then, can offer some explanation for (1). But what about (2)? What does a word recognition theory of reading have to say about the substitution of "I" for "he "? There is no graphemic or phonological similarity here. Furthermore, these are short, frequently occuring words that the reader (in this case a sixth-grader) should have been expected to have mastered. In short, the word recognition theory of reading has nothing to say about cases like (2). On the other hand, the psycholinguistic theory can offer an explanation. For one thing, the reader used syntactic knowledge at the point of substituting "I" for "he" since both the expected response and the observed response are pronouns in subject position marked for nominative case. The reader's syntactic knowledge enabled him to predict correctly that a nominative pronoun would occur. In addition, since both words here are personal pronouns, there is a semantic similarity between the expected and observed responses. Furthermore, the reader used pragmatic cues to infer pronoun reference. The pronoun occurs as a dialog carrier, and the reader predicted that the unnamed narrator in this first-person narration would speak these lines. The reader appears to have used the earlier possessive pronoun "my" as a cue for pronoun reference rather than the proper noun "Mr Barnaby ". Thus, the reader used syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic cues to make his prediction, and these non-perceptual cues overcame the grapho-phonic cues in the text. As a result, there was a variation between his observed response and the expected response. Since only the psycholinguistic theory of reading can account for the substitution in the second sentence, it is to be preferred to a word recognition theory of reading.
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39

Araújo, Francisco Jardes Nobre. "A variação do TE/LHE em cartas pessoais de cearenses no século XX." www.teses.ufc.br, 2014. http://www.repositorio.ufc.br/handle/riufc/8903.

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ARAÚJO, Francisco Jardes Nobre. A variação do TE/LHE em cartas pessoais de cearenses no século XX. 2014. 153f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Departamento de Letras Vernáculas, Programa de Pós-graduação em Linguística, Fortaleza (CE), 2014.
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The linguistic variation is a universal phenomenon that affects all levels of grammar (CAMACHO, 2011). In many languages, of all the word classes, the pronouns, especially the so-called personal pronouns, are more inclined to variation and to rearrangement in the system (MONTEIRO, 1994), although they use to be constituted by a relatively small number of grammatical items, restricted to a kind of closed inventory. The 2nd PERS SING is which more has been coded in a variant way, not only in the Portuguese language, as in many other Indo-European languages, in which there is a dual system of pronouns for 2nd PERS: the T-forms and the V-forms (derived, respectively, from the use of Latin "tu" and "vos") – the first are used both familiarly and informally, while others denote politeness and distance. From the third decade of the twentieth century, with the use of "você" (a V-form) in variation with "tu" (a T-form), the entire pronominal frame of the Portuguese language, including the 2nd PERS possessive, began to undergo change. Assuming the ideas defended by Variationist Sociolinguistics, especially with William Labov (1978, 1983, 1994, 2008), that the linguistic variation occurs motivated by factors both internal and external to the system, this work aims to analyze the variation of forms "te" and "lhe" as 2nd PERS SING, both in accusative and in dative function, in Brazilian Portuguese written in the twentieth century. It uses a sample of 186 personal letters written between 1940 and 2000, obtained in a search among the inhabitants of the town of Quixadá, in the middle of the state of Ceará. The letters are collected from common people, that is, not from language professionals, having been exchanged between friends or relatives. As methodology, the sample was stratified into three periods of the twentieth century in which the letters were written (years 1940’s and 50’s, years 1960’s and 70’s, years 1980’s and 90’s) and gender of authorship (letters from men and letters from women) and submits the data to the computer program GoldVarb X in order to obtain statistical results and interpret these results in light of theories of Sociolinguistics Variationist. The survey results showed that variation of the pronoun forms "te"/"lhe" is conditioned by linguistic factors, such as the form of the verb, the position of the pronoun and the presence of a V-form before "te" or "lhe", and that, although "lhe" was more used than "te" in the letters, its use has declined over the three periods of time analyzed.
A variação linguística é um fenômeno universal que atinge todos os níveis da gramática (CAMACHO, 2011). Em muitas línguas, a classe dos pronomes, especialmente a dos chamados pronomes pessoais, é a que sofre mais variação e a que mais se reorganiza dentro do sistema (MONTEIRO, 1994), embora esta costume ser constituída por um número relativamente pequeno de itens gramaticais, formando um inventário fechado. Dentre as pessoas do discurso, é a 2ª a que mais tem sido codificada de maneira variada, não só na língua portuguesa, como em diversas outras línguas indo-europeias, nas quais há um sistema dual de pronomes para a 2ª PESS.: as formas T e as formas V (derivadas, respectivamente, do uso do "tu" e do "vos" latinos) – as primeiras são de uso familiar ou informal, enquanto as outras denotam polidez e distanciamento. A partir da terceira década do século XX, com o uso de "você" (forma V) em variação com "tu" (forma T), todo o quadro pronominal da língua, incluindo os possessivos de 2ª PESS, passou a sofrer variação. Partindo do pressuposto defendido pela Sociolinguística Variacionista, sobretudo com Labov (1978; 1983; 1994; 2008), de que a variação linguística se dá motivada tanto por fatores internos quanto externos ao sistema, o presente trabalho busca analisar a variação das formas "te" e "lhe" como pronomes de 2ª PESS. SING., tanto na função de acusativo, quanto na de dativo, no português brasileiro escrito do século XX. Para isso, utiliza uma amostra de 186 cartas pessoais escritas entre 1940 e 2000, obtidas numa busca entre os habitantes do município de Quixadá, no Sertão Central cearense. As cartas coletadas são de pessoas do povo, isto é, não de profissionais da linguagem, tendo sido trocadas entre amigos ou parentes. Como metodologia, estratifica a amostra em três períodos do século XX nos quais as cartas foram escritas (anos 1940-50, anos 1960-70 e anos 1980-90) e por gênero da autoria (cartas de homens e cartas de mulheres) e submete os dados ao programa computacional GoldVarb X para obter dados estatísticos e interpreta esses dados à luz das teorias da Sociolinguística Variacionista. Os resultados da pesquisa demonstraram que a variação das formas pronominais "te"/"lhe" é condicionada por fatores linguísticos, como a forma do verbo, a posição do pronome e a presença de forma V antes de "te" ou "lhe", e que, apesar de mais frequente do que o uso de "te", o uso de "lhe" sofreu declínio ao longo dos três períodos de tempo analisados.
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40

Thompson, Robin L. "Eye gaze in American Sign Language linguistic functions for verbs and pronoun /." Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2006. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3279427.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006.
Title from first page of PDF file (viewed October 16, 2006). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.
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41

Hatzidaki, Anna. "Interactions between languages in verb- and pronoun-agreement in bilingual sentence production." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6583.

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This thesis investigates how fluent bilinguals make use of the grammar of their two languages when they construct verb- and pronoun-agreement only in one language (monolingual mode) or in both their languages (bilingual mode). We are particularly interested in the impact of the non-response language in sentence processing on the response language. Bilingual research has provided evidence for language integration in bilingual speech (e.g., Hartsuiker, Pickering, & Veltkamp, 2004) which is also consistent with the phenomenon of code-switching whereby speakers can use elements of each language in producing mixed-language utterances (e.g., Myers-Scotton, 2002). So far, studies at the lexical level have provided support for parallel language activation (e.g., Colomé, 2001), yet the issue of whether activation of either language can be strong enough to influence the workings of the other is still in dispute (e.g., Hermans, Bongaerts, de Bot, & Schreuder, 1998, but see Costa, La Heij, & Navarrete, 2006). In three separate sections of the thesis we employ a sentence-completion paradigm widely used in monolingual agreement literature (Bock & Miller, 1991) to examine language interaction effects in the monolingual and the bilingual modes of speech (Grosjean, 2000). English-Greek and Greek-English fluent bilinguals produced completions to singular or plural subjects when the number of the translation was either the same or different, and when their completion either did or did not switch languages. The first section investigates whether there is influence of the divergent number properties of the nonresponse native language (L1) on verb-agreement in the response second language (L2). The results of Greek-English bilinguals show influence of the underlying number of the L1 on completions in the L2. We interpret this in terms of a markedness account (e.g., Eberhard, 1997) whereby parallel activation and competition between an L2 singular subject noun and its L1 plural translation results in plural verbagreement because the singular form is more vulnerable to the marked plural form. English-Greek bilinguals who perform on the same monolingual mode do not show influence of their L1 when speaking in the L2 (Greek). We attribute this finding to a difference of morphological/inflectional properties between the two languages which renders a language that displays fewer overt markings (English) easier to control when utterances are produced in a language that displays more overt markings (Greek) (e.g., Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Semenza, 1995).
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Abreu, Laurel. "Spanish subject personal pronoun use by monolinguals, bilinguals and second language learners." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2009. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0025112.

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Pontius, Meghan Leigh. "Physiological Response to a Breakup: Predicted by Pronoun Use in the Laboratory." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/321918.

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Lebensohn-Chialvo, Florencia. "Adaptive Significance of Personal Pronoun Use in Families of Adolescent Substance Abusers." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/565887.

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A growing body of research suggests that patterns of personal pronoun use in couples - particularly we-talk (first person plural pronouns) and you-talk (second person pronouns) - are potentially meaningful markers of adaptive and maladaptive functioning, respectively. Despite this growing couple literature, very little is known about the relational implications of we-talk and you-talk in larger social units like families, where relevant interaction patterns are often triadic and involve members of different generations. The present study employed baseline observational and self-report data from a multi-site study of family therapy for adolescent substance drug abuse to (a) describe patterns of personal pronoun use in families consisting of two parent figures and at least one adolescent child, during conversations that had a collaborative (plan a menu) and a conflictual (discuss a recent argument) valence; and (b) explore associations between pronoun patterns and various indicators of adaptive adolescent and family functioning. As hypothesized, automated text analysis of transcripts from 74 English speaking families revealed more we-talk in the cooperative (menu) task, more you-talk and I-talk in the conflict (argument) task, and significant variations in pronoun frequency by family role (more I-talk by adolescents, more we-talk and you-talk by parents). Additional coding, guided by structural family systems theory, took into account the source and referent of each pronoun utterance (e.g., parent-parent we-talk, cross-generation you-talk), and these structural pronoun variables showed stronger associations with concurrently observed family interaction patterns than global (raw count) pronoun variables did. Contrary to expectation, you-talk was a stronger predictor of concurrent family behavior and adaptive youth/family functioning than we-talk, and associations between pronoun patterns and indicators of adaptive functioning were stronger for the conflict task than the cooperation task. The results suggest that relational meanings of pronouns are substantially more complex in triadic intergenerational family interactions than in dyadic romantic relationships. Discussion of these results includes study limitations and possible directions for further research.
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Oshima-Takane, Yuriko. "The learning of pronouns /." Thesis, McGill University, 1985. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=71959.

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This thesis investigates how children learn the first and the second person pronouns in English. In the first phase two cross sectional studies, which examined production and comprehension in children between 16 months and 36 months of ages, were conducted to determine what types of hypotheses children entertain about the semantic rules of the pronouns. In the second phase an intervention experiment was conducted to determine whether children benefit from observing speech not addressed to them for discovering the correct rules. This hypothesis was evaluated by comparing the effects of two different intervention programs: One providing children with opportunities to observe the shifting reference of personal pronouns in speech addressed to others and the other not providing such opportunities. The results suggest that even children under two years old can learn the correct rules of personal pronouns from speech not addressed to them.
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Huang, Shaoting, and 黄少庭. "An analysis of the use of plural personal pronouns in Quanzhoudialect." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2010. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B45163947.

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Maier, Georg [Verfasser], and Peter [Akademischer Betreuer] Siemund. "The Distribution of Pronoun Case Forms in Subject Predicative Complements in Varieties of English: A Corpus- and Web-Based Study of Pronoun Case Variation / Georg Maier ; Betreuer: Peter Siemund." Hamburg : Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, 2017. http://d-nb.info/1124591257/34.

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Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia. "Pronoun resolution across sentences : centers, probabilistic constraints, and the view from the object." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.613939.

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Howe, Stephen. "The personal pronouns in the Germanic languages : a study of personal pronoun morphology and change in the Germanic languages from the first records to the present day /." Berlin ; New York : W. de Gruyter, 1996. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb361779469.

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Ek, Adam. "Extracting social networks from fiction : Imaginary and invisible friends: Investigating the social world of imaginary friends." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för lingvistik, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-145659.

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This thesis develops an approach to extract the social relation between characters in literary text to create a social network. The approach uses co-occurrences of named entities, keywords associated with the named entities, and the dependency relations that exist between the named entities to construct the network. Literary texts contain a large amount of pronouns to represent the named entities, to resolve the antecedents of pronouns, a pronoun resolution system is implemented based on a standard pronoun resolution algorithm. The results indicate that the pronoun resolution system finds the correct named entity in 60,4\% of all cases. The social network is evaluated by comparing character importance rankings based on graph properties with an independently human generated importance rankings. The generated social networks correlate moderately to strongly with the independent character ranking.
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