ERIC Number: EJ1224520
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Sep
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: N/A
Children's Understanding of Pronouns That Differ in Scope of Reference
Megherbi, Hakima; Seigneuric, Alix; Oakhill, Jane; Bueno, Steve
Journal of Child Language, v46 n5 p1012-1024 Sep 2019
Some pronouns can refer to entities that vary widely in scope. In some cases, the referent might be a noun phrase, and in other cases it might be a whole proposition. In the cases of pronouns with a noun phrase antecedent, an already existing referent is reactivated from the preceding context. In the case of pronouns with a propositional antecedent, the referent must be reformulated. The interpretation and use of such pronouns was investigated in 150 eight-year-old children in a reading comprehension task. Experiment 1 used a referent specification task and Experiment 2 used a completion task. It was more difficult for children to process a pronoun when its antecedent was a proposition compared to a noun phrase. These results are in line with the linguistic approaches (e.g., Gundel et al., 2005) according to which processing of pronouns with a propositional antecedent is more complex and requires greater cognitive effort.
Descriptors: Child Language, Form Classes (Languages), Nouns, Phrase Structure, Reading Comprehension, Task Analysis, Language Processing, Linguistic Theory, Ambiguity (Semantics), Elementary School Students
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A