Discussion part 2: Comprehension study

179 Granholm, Asarnow, Sarkin, & Dykes, 1996, Schluroff, Zimmermann, Freeman, Hofmeister, Lorscheid, & Weber, 1986; Kuchinke, Võ, Hofmann, & Jacobs, 2007).

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pronoun has to be bound by Frank, whereas the personal pronoun should not be bound by Frank. However, this is possible in English and therefore, this binding is a violation of Principle B (Chomsky, 1981).

The comprehension study tested the grammaticality of the items and also how the pronominal elements were interpreted. The grammaticality judgement task revealed for Dutch that pronominal elements in (178), (179) and (180) were acceptable in Dutch. This has also been found for German with the exception of reflexive pronouns in PNPs (180). Only 2 of 24 items were judged as acceptable. Notice that this has been predicted for German and Dutch. Lee-Schoenfeld (2008) argued that reflexive pronouns in German cannot be bound across a CP boundary which would be the case if the reflexive pronoun were bound by Frank in (180).

The attention remained on the interpretation of the pronominal elements in the three types of picture NPs (178-180). In German, the personal pronoun in s-PNPs (178), p-PNPs (179) and PNPs (149) was mostly interpreted as the non-local antecedent Jan. This is in accordance with Principle B (Chomsky, 1981). However, the personal pronoun in these structures has also been interpreted as the local antecedent Frank which is not predicted by Principle B (Chomsky, 1981). The reflexive pronoun in s-PNPs (178) and p-PNP (179) was interpreted as Frank that is in accordance with Principle A.

In Dutch, the non-local antecedent Jan was also as antecedent for the personal pronoun mainly in s-PNPs (178), p-PNPs (179) and PNPs (180). The local antecedent Frank was chosen as antecedent for the personal pronoun as well. The reflexive pronoun in s-PNPs (178), p-PNP (179) and PNPs (180) was interpreted as Frank, which is in accordance with Principle A.

Studies (e.g. Sturt, 2003; Runner et al. 2002, 2003, 2006) on English picture NPs have already shown that participants did not choose the antecedents exclusively as predicted by linguistic theory. Here, the comprehension of pronominal elements in German and Dutch resembles that of English. As a consequence, linguistic theory should not be considered as an absolute description of how pronominal elements behave. The behaviour of pronominal elements is subject to regional variation and diachronic changes. Linguistic theory should be considered as more or less as guidance of what pronominal binding could look like.⁴¹ As the results have shown, linguistic theory quite well describes how reflexive pronouns should be bound, whereas the binding of personal pronouns shows more variation. The difference in binding domain between reflexive and personal pronouns for these structures could be explained in

41 Reuland (personal communication β016) argued that „a serious binding theory should be able to capture cross-linguistic variation, including regional variation, or at least strive towards doing so, and provide the ingredients.”

In other words theories should be revised by considering the results of the comprehension study.

181 the way that reflexive pronouns need to be bound by the next available antecedent, which is also the antecedent favoured by Principle A (Chomsky, 1981). Personal pronouns in all three structures (178-180) take the local and non-local antecedent, which is only partially consistent with Principle B (Chomsky, 1981). It might be the case that discourse has a greater influence on the interpretation of personal pronouns than a syntactic constraint like Principle B, leading to an interpretation of the personal pronoun towards a syntactically illegal antecedent.

Nothing can be said with regard to processing. Here, Principle B might be applied first and at later processing stages discourse might come into play. However, as this study has not investigated the processing of pronominal elements in picture NPs, this is speculative.

Especially the results of the personal pronouns were quite interesting cross-linguistically.

Personal pronouns in PNPs (180) and s-PNPs (178) were interpreted non-locally as Jan in German, whereas in Dutch, the non-local Jan and the local Frank antecedents were chosen.

Structural and non-structural factors guide interpretation in Dutch. The interpretation of personal pronouns in German picture NPs is more guided by structural constraints. However, there is a more intriguing question: What causes the difference between German and Dutch in the interpretation of personal pronouns? The same structures were tested. Moreover, an equal number of participants took part in both languages. The sentences were lexically not the same as direct translations were not possible. A cross-linguistic difference has already been discussed with regard to personal pronouns in a PP. In Dutch, the personal pronoun may be bound within the sentence by the subject Jan. As example (181) shows, that is not acceptable in German. It could be argued that personal pronouns in Dutch can be interpreted more freely than in German. German and Dutch differ with regard to locative PPs like (181) and Dutch is similar to English in this respect. The same holds for personal pronouns in picture NPs (178-180). Here, Dutch and German differ, but English and Dutch show the same coindexation.

Hence, there is variation within Germanic languages.

(181) Jani legde de pen naast hemi

“Jan put the pen next to him”

8.2.1 Implications for future research: What needs to be done?

The results of the self-paced reading and eyetracking studies were quite differently from each other. Especially the data of the eyetracking study were not really informative. Main effects were found in both self-paced reading and eyetracking, but interaction at the critical and post-critical regions in eyetracking or the regressions were missing. Eyetracking has been argued to be quite informative or even more informative than the data of the self-paced reading study,

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as the measures in eyetracking were thought to be more fine-grained. The differences between the self-paced reading and eyetracking study with regard to the results could be explained by the hugh variation in the eyetracking data which could have led to the absence of more significant effects. Other research analyses pupillary responses instead of first fixations and total times and so forth. It has been argued that pupillary responses were reliable. Hence, a next step could be to analyse the pupillary responses that were also provided by the eyetracker.

Furthermore, it would be interesting to gather more information about how well the participants understood the pronominal element. The comprehension questions of the self-paced reading and eyetracking studies did not examine the interpretation of the pronominal elements, but of the sentences as a whole. This study has provided information about how pronominal elements were processed in L1 and L2 speakers in a co-argument structure and PP. Nevertheless, it would also be interesting to know if comprehension differs from processing. Remember that L1 speakers have been shown to make use of a syntactic operation in the processing of reflexive pronouns in a co-argument structure. This means that a syntactic chain has been established between the reflexive pronoun and the syntactic antecedent. What this research does not tell us is, if the syntactic antecedent would also have been chosen for interpretation. This research thus cannot tell anything about what happens at later processing stages. Does discourse overrule a syntactic operation in the interpretation process?

The comprehension study was a first attempt to get an impression of how reflexive and personal pronouns were interpreted in picture NPs. The interpretation of pronominal elements does not tell anything about the underlying processing. However, it is now clear that structural and non-structural factors influence processing for both reflexive and personal pronouns.

Furthermore, cross-linguistic differences have been observed. Having this in mind facilitates the make-up of a processing study and its interpretation as well. Processing will probably also be guided by structural and non-structural strategies in both reflexive and personal pronouns.

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