Resolving pronominal reference in local contexts: a referent selection task

Abstract

Studies on global and local discourse have shown that sign languages indeed allow for occurrence of referentially unanchored pronominal index (ıx) signs referring to non-present antecedents to appear in ambiguous contexts. In local contexts, resolving the reference of these expressions has been suggested to either depend on a modality-specific anaphora resolution mechanism (localization) or on the next mention bias (first/second mention preference) influencing the salience of the referents. This paper presents a two-alternative forced choice referent selection task investigating the impact of a default localization pattern on the interpretation of referentially unanchored pronominal ix sign, in the local discourse with two competing antecedents. To do that, comparative response data was collected from right- and left-handed signers of German Sign Language (DGS) and Turkish Sign Language (TİD). Results provide evidence for second-mention or object preference for pronominal ix in both languages. In addition, the default localization pattern is identified only in restricted environments (i.e., with reciprocal verbs) to resolve pronominal reference. This modality-specific means is shown to be subject to variation across two unrelated sign languages under investigation. --- Original in English.

Keywords

• pronominal index (ıx), second-mention preference, spatial defaults, german sign language (deutsche gebärdensprache: dgs), turkish sign language (türk i̇şaret dili: ti̇d).