1. Anaphoric Reference of Null and Overt Subject Pronouns in Spanish and Italian Francesca Filiaci The University of Edinburgh

2. Spanish and Italian Can they be considered equivalent form a syntactic and pragmatic point of view regarding the use of NS and OS? –What does this tell us about the universality of pragmatic principles? –What implications for cross-linguistc studies? What could be the origin of the differences between the two languages?

3. Structure of the talk Anaphoric reference: –Position of Antecedent Strategy (Carminati, 2002) –Accessibility Theory (Ariel, 1990) Data on Spanish and Italian: –Psycholinguistic and variationist studies –PAS in Italian and Spanish Morphological Ambiguity Hypothesis –Data on Spanish (Conclusions)

4. The Null Subject Parameter (Rizzi, 1997) : A. Formal licensing: pro is licensed by X 0 |…| under agreement or government B. Identification: pro inherits features from licensing X 0 Spanish hablo hablas habla hablamos habláis hablan Italian parlo parli parla parliamo parlate parlano

5. Interpretation of NS and OS Null Subjects (NS) tend to refer to prominent antecedents; Overt Subjects (OS) retrieve less prominent antecedents. Carminati (2002) proposes the Position of Antecedent Strategy (PAS) for Italian NS and OS pronouns in intra-sentential anaphora: –“ The NS prefers an antecedent in the SpecIP position, the OS pronoun one that is not in SpecIP”.

6. PAS: an example Quando Maria i ha visitato Anna j in ospedale, When Mary visited Anna at the hospital, Ø i/j le ha portato un mazzo di fiori. lei i/j le ha portato un mazzo di fiori. she gave her a bunch of flowers. Ø i/j era già fuori pericolo. lei i/j era già fuori pericolo. she was already out of danger. a. b. c. d.

7. Universality of the PAS The PAS is motivated by universal pragmatic principles (see Accessibility Theory (Ariel, 1991)): –Referring expressions can be ordered on a scale: –Attenuated, less informative, less rigid expressions retrieve more Accessible (prominent) antecedents. –The order along the scale is universal. –The distance between expressions can vary cross- linguistically. High AccessibilityLow Accessibility ∅       Pr.   

8. Studies on Spanish Use of OS pronouns correlates with a change in subject reference (Enriquez, 1984; Cameron 1992, 1997; Flores- Ferrán,2002) - corpus studies. Psycholignuistics data: Alonso-Ovalle et al. (2002).

9. Experiment 1: Participants: 32 Italian + 32 Spanish monolingual adult speakers. Materials and Procedure: (Carminati, 2002), 16 experimental sentences, clause by clause self-paced reading + comprehension questions. Dependent Variable: reading time for the second clause.

10. Experiment 1: Reading Times for the 2 nd Clause ** *

11. Reading Times for the 2 nd Clause

12. Antecedent Biases: Experiment 2 a.-b. Quando Carlo ha chiesto aiuto a Diego per preparare When Carlo asked help to Diego to prepare l’esame, the exam, c.-d. Quando Carlo ha prestato aiuto a Diego per preparare When Carlo gave help to Diego to prepare l’esame, the exam lui / ø lo ha superato con voti eccellenti. he/ ø passed it with excellent marks.

13. Experiment 2 Participants: 32 Italian + 32 Spanish monolingual adult speakers. Material and Procedure: 48 experimental sentences, phrase by phrase self-paced reading + comprehension questions. Dependent Variable: reading time for the VP and Wrap Up phrase.

14. Experiment 2: VP reading times

15. Experiment 2: Wrap Up phrase reading times

16. Differences between Spanish and Italian? The data suggest that there are differences in the interpretation of OS in Italian and Spanish. The results are compatible with predictions of AT. Implications for cross-linguistic studies. What could be the origins of these differences?

17. Verbal Morphology ItalianSpanish Indicativo Presente Indicativo Imperfetto Passato Remoto Futuro semplice amoamavoamaiamerò amiamaviamastiamerai amaamavaamòamerà amiamoamavamoamammoameremo amateamavateamasteamerete amanoamavanoamaronoameranno Congiuntivo Presente Congiuntivo Imperfetto Condizionale amiamassiamerei amiamassiameresti amiamasseamerebbe amiamoamassimoameremmo amiateamasteamereste aminoamasseroamerebbero Indicativo Presente Indicativo Imperfetto Passato Remoto Futuro semplice hablohablabahabléhablaré hablashablabashablastehablarás hablahablabahablóhablará hablamoshablábamoshablamoshablaremos habláishablabaishablasteishablaréis hablanhablabanhablaronhablarán Congiuntivo Presente Congiuntivo Imperfetto Congiuntivo Futuro Condizionale hablehablarahablarehablaría hableshablarashablareshablarías hablehablarahablarehablaría hablemoshabláramoshabláremoshablaríamos habléishablaraishablareishablaríais hablenhablaranhablarenhablarían

18. Verbal Morphology ItalianSpanish Indicativo Presente Indicativo Imperfetto Passato Remoto Futuro semplice amoamavoamaiamerò amiamaviamastiamerai amaamavaamòamerà amiamoamavamoamammoameremo amateamavateamasteamerete amanoamavanoamaronoameranno Congiuntivo Presente Congiuntivo Imperfetto Condizionale amiamassiamerei amiamassiameresti amiamasseamerebbe amiamoamassimoameremmo amiateamasteamereste aminoamasseroamerebbero Indicativo Presente Indicativo Imperfetto Passato Remoto Futuro semplice hablohablabahabléhablaré hablashablabashablastehablarás hablahablabahablóhablará hablamoshablábamoshablamoshablaremos habláishablabaishablasteishablaréis hablanhablabanhablaronhablarán Congiuntivo Presente Congiuntivo Imperfetto Congiuntivo Futuro Condizionale hablehablarahablarehablaría hableshablarashablareshablarías hablehablarahablarehablaría hablemoshabláramoshabláremoshablaríamos habléishablaraishablareishablaríais hablenhablaranhablarenhablarían

19. Functional Compensation Hochbergh (1986): 2 nd person singular pronoun used more often by Puerto Ricans (in Boston) when /-s/ dropped. Cameron (1992), Morales (1997): no evidence in support of this hypothesis (in Puerto Rico).

20. Morphological Ambiguity Hypothesis In Spanish (more than in Italian) OS pronouns are needed to express explicitly person features that are not expressed unambiguously by the verbal morphology. –Functional –Predicts different interpretations of OS pronouns depending on verbal morphology Enriquez (1984) same rates of subject pronouns in ambiguous and unambiguous tenses.

21. Morphological Ambiguity Experiment Maria ha regalato una vacanza a Gianna, Mary has given a holiday to Gianna, Maria ha ricevuto in regalo una vacanza da Gianna, Mary has received as a gift a holiday from Gianna, nonostante lei / ø sia povera e senza lavoro. anche se lei è povera e senza lavoro. even if she is poor and without a job.

22. Morphological Ambiguity Experiment María ha ofrecido unas vacaciones de regalo a Ana, María ha recibido unas vacaciones de regalo de Ana, aunque ella / ø sea pobre y sin trabajo. aunque ella es pobre y sin trabajo.

23. Morphological Ambiguity: Spanish Results Null vs. Overt Subjects with Ambiguous Morphology

24. Morphological Ambiguity: Spanish Results OS with Ambiguous vs. Unambiguous Morphology

25. Discussion Confirmed the differences in anaphoric resolution of OS pronouns between Spanish and Italian. Necessary to compare with Italian data for the same experiment. Different order main-subordinate can’t be disentangled from a MA effect.

26. References Ariel, M. (1990), Accessing Noun Phrase Antecedents, London, Routlege. Cameron, R. (1992), Pronominal and null subject variation in Spanish: Constraints, dialects, and functional compensation, University of Pennsylvania dissertation. Carminati, M. (2002), The Processing of Italian Subject Pronouns, PhD Thesis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Enriquez, E. (1984), El pronombre personal sujeto en la lengua española hablada en Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Miguel de Cervantes. Hochberg, J. (1986), Functional compensation for /s/ deletion in Puerto Rican Spanish, Language, 62(3): 609-621. Morales, A. (1997), La hipótesis funcional y la aparición de sujeto non nominal: El español de Puerto Rico, Hispania 80: 153-165. Rizzi, L. (1997), A parametric approach to comparative syntax: properties of the pronominal system, in L. Haegeman (ed.), The New Comparative Syntax, New York: Longman.