Topicality, accessibility, and causality in anaphora resolution: An eye-tracking study of null and overt pronouns in Italian

Maria Vender; Andrea Nardon; Ilaria Venagli

doi:10.1515/ip-2025-0008

Article

Topicality, accessibility, and causality in anaphora resolution: An eye-tracking study of null and overt pronouns in Italian

Maria Vender
Maria Vender is an Associate Professor in Educational Linguistics at the University of Verona. She obtained a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Verona. She coordinates the PRIN 2022 PNRR REACH project (Verona Unit) on reading comprehension in fragile populations. Her research interests cover the domain of language acquisition and language teaching in both typical and atypical contexts.
, Andrea Nardon
Andrea Nardon is a Research Fellow within the REACH project at the University of Verona and PhD candidate at the University of Barcelona. His research interests focus on L2 vocabulary acquisition and testing and the impact of out-of-school exposure on L2 development.
and Ilaria Venagli
Ilaria Venagli is a Research Fellow within the REACH project at the University of Verona and a PhD candidate at the University of Konstanz (in cotutelle de thèse with the University of Verona). Her research interests mainly focus on L1 and L2 reading in learners with and without dyslexia, as well as on task development.

Published/Copyright: April 9, 2025

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From the journal Intercultural Pragmatics Volume 22 Issue 1

Abstract

It has been argued that the distribution of pronominal forms in pro-drop languages is shaped by a complex interplay of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors. Null pronouns are typically interpreted as co-referring with the most prominent antecedent, whereas overt pronouns often signal a topic shift, co-referring with less prominent antecedents. Although many frameworks have been proposed to explain the division of labor between null and overt pronouns, empirical studies on anaphora resolution in causative sentences remain scarce. In this study, 41 Italian native speakers completed a referential selection task involving subject-biased or object-biased complex causative sentences with either a null or an overt pronoun. Results revealed a strong reliance on discourse-level factors, with participants consistently selecting the pragmatically appropriate antecedent regardless of pronoun type. However, eye-tracking data showed higher processing costs in accommodating violations of the typical pronoun-antecedent combinations. This was especially true in subject-biased sentences with an overt pronoun but was also observed in object-biased sentences with a null pronoun. These findings suggest that, while pragmatic factors largely drive anaphoric resolution in causative sentences, pronoun type leads to different processing costs in contexts where the pragmatic antecedent does not align with the expected pronoun type.

Keywords: anaphora resolution; null pronouns; overt pronouns; eye-tracking; Italian

Corresponding author: Maria Vender, University of Verona, Verona, Italy, E-mail: maria.vender@univr.it

About the authors

Maria Vender

Maria Vender is an Associate Professor in Educational Linguistics at the University of Verona. She obtained a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Verona. She coordinates the PRIN 2022 PNRR REACH project (Verona Unit) on reading comprehension in fragile populations. Her research interests cover the domain of language acquisition and language teaching in both typical and atypical contexts.

Andrea Nardon

Andrea Nardon is a Research Fellow within the REACH project at the University of Verona and PhD candidate at the University of Barcelona. His research interests focus on L2 vocabulary acquisition and testing and the impact of out-of-school exposure on L2 development.

Ilaria Venagli

Ilaria Venagli is a Research Fellow within the REACH project at the University of Verona and a PhD candidate at the University of Konstanz (in cotutelle de thèse with the University of Verona). Her research interests mainly focus on L1 and L2 reading in learners with and without dyslexia, as well as on task development.

Acknowledgments

The research leading to this work was financed by the European Union - (Next Generation EU) within the project PRIN 2022 PNRR: “REAding CompreHension for inclusion (REACH)”. Our special thanks go to Denis Delfitto for his fundamental input in the development of the research program and his constant feedback. Chiara Melloni and Massimiliano Canzi are also gratefully acknowledged for their valuable comments and discussions. We also wish to thank all the participants who took part in our research.

Author contributions: The authors confirm their contribution to the paper as follows. Study conception and design: M.V. and A.N.; data collection: A.N.; statistical analysis: I.V.; interpretation of results: M.V., A.N., I.V.; funding acquisition and project administration: M.V.; manuscript preparation: M.V., A.N., I.V. For academic purposes, M.V. takes responsibility for sections 1 and 4; A.N. for sections 2 and 5, I.V. for sections 2.3 and 3. All authors reviewed the paper and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Published Online: 2025-04-09

Published in Print: 2025-03-26

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https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2025-0008

Keywords for this article

anaphora resolution; null pronouns; overt pronouns; eye-tracking; Italian