1. Eleni Miltsakaki AUTH Fall 2005-Lecture 6
Special Electives of Comp.Linguistics: Processing Anaphoric Expressions
Eleni Miltsakaki
AUTH
Fall 2005-Lecture 6

2. Plan for today
Semantic focusing and the relational hypothesis (cont’d)
“Interpreting pronouns and connectives: Interactions among focusing, thematic roles and coherence relations”
(R. Stevenson, A. Knott, J. Oberlander and S. McDonald, 2000)
Structural vs semantic focusing
“Effects of subordination on referential form and interpretation”
(Miltsakaki 2002)

3. Review of the focusing hypothesis
Verbs and connectives have focusing properties
The focusing properties of the verb direct attention to the entity associated with the endpoint of the described event
The focusing properties of the connective depends on its meaning

4. Review of the relational hypothesis
The referent of a pronoun is determined by the choice of coherence relation and not what is in focus.
RESULT: the thematic role associated with the endpoint of the eventuality, patient
PURPOSE: the agent of an event (so this relation is incompatible with states)
NARRATIVE: the agent of an event

5. Stevenson et al’s experiment 3
Same design as experiment 1
Unambiguous connectives
Next (NARRATIVE)
Whereupon (RESULT)
Action verbs
Judgment (e.g., criticize)
Impact (e.g., hit)
Two thematic role orders
Agent-Patient
Patient-Agent

6. Predictions Relational hypothesis Semantic focusing
In the “next” condition, the referent of the pronoun will be the agent because the coherence relation is narrative
Semantic focusing
In the “next” condition, the referent of the pronoun will be the first mentioned entity (?!) because it focuses on the temporal rather than causal structure of the discourse. Temporal connectives direct attention to the first mentioned entity.

7. Results

8. Results

9. Conclusions from Stevenson et al 2000
Semantic focusing gives the best explanation for the interpretation of the pronouns.
When focusing and coherence relation diverge then the coherence relation remains closely tied to the thematic role of the pronominal referent
When possible, people strive to maintain consistency between focusing, verb semantics, coherence relations and the interpretation of the pronoun

10. Structural factors?
Stevenson et al report that although not directly tested structural factors appeared to play a role. E.g.,
references to PATIENT were more frequent when PATIENT was first mentioned.
References to first mentioned in the “next” condition were more frequent in the PATIENT-AGENT order

11. Structural vs semantic focusing
(Miltsakaki 2002, 2003)

12. Exp. 1: structural and semantic focusing in English
Conditions
Main-main
Main-subordinate
Verbs
Action
Connectives
5 subordinate conjunctions
although, because, when, while, so that
5 adverbials
however, then, period, as a result, what is more

13. Sample stimuli

14. Results

15. Exp. 2: Structural and semantic focusing in Greek
Greek is a pro-drop language
When 2 entities are in the discourse, strong pronouns like ‘ekinos’ will pick the less salient entity of the two (Dimitriadis 1994)
O Giorgos-j kalese to Gianni-i gia fagito
#NULL-i/Aftos-i den mporouse na paei giati eihe douleia

16. Design Judgement task for felicity
Main-main, main-subordinate conditions
Action verbs (impact)
Two continuations
NULL
EKINOS

17. Greek connectives

18. Sample items

19. Predictions
In the main-main condition, the strong pronoun version is felicitous
In the main-subordinate condition, null or strong can be felicitous depending on semantic factors, hence no clear overall preference

20. Results

21. Conclusions Structural focusing is predominant across main clauses
Syntactic subordination creates a locality where other factors (e.g., semantic) are at work

22. Analysis per connective in English

23. Analysis per connective in Greek

24. Conclusions from analytical results
Effect of focusing properties of connectives intrasententially
Discourse relations?