Discourse effects in processing Chinese reflexive pronouns
-
Yue Zhao
Abstract
Reflexive pronoun resolution in Chinese is well known to be affected by discourse context, as antecedent choice can be guided to a long-distance or local antecedent. How discourse affects the real-time processing of reflexive resolution, however, is not well understood, especially over different reflexive types. This research investigates two reflexives, 自己 zìjǐ ‘self’ and 他自己 tāzìjǐ ‘him/herself’, to understand if discourse influences their processing differently, as only tāzìjǐ has a preference for a local antecedent. Recent research has shown that there appears to be competition between discourse bias towards long-distance binding and preference for locality. Utilizing a self-paced reading experiment, we test if context biased towards a long-distance antecedent affects the processing of the reflexives as compared to without context. We find that context affects both reflexives immediately, contrary to what has been found in the literature. Our findings suggest that there is no competition, with discourse context guiding antecedence effortlessly. Moreover, our approach is couched within neo-Gricean pragmatic theory, simplifying our understanding of reflexive processing in Chinese without necessitating a conflict between syntax and pragmatics.
Acknowledgments
This research builds upon Yue Zhao’s senior thesis research conducted at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in 2024. We would like to thank the reviewers for their constructive criticism.
Appendix A: Target sentences
The following are the target sentences used in the experiment. As discussed in Section 3, the target sentences have the following structure, where elements in italics vary: name/‘say’/name/verb/possessive reflexive/kinship term/sentence-final particle.
张宇/说/郭雄/误会/[自己的-他自己的]/哥哥/了。
孙涵/说/黄奕/厌倦/[自己的-他自己的]/哥哥/了。
周波/说/陆飞/思念/[自己的-他自己的]/哥哥/了。
张宇/说/黄奕/同情/[自己的-他自己的]/弟弟/了。
张宇/说/陆飞/忽略/[自己的-他自己的]/弟弟/了。
孙涵/说/郭雄/怀念/[自己的-他自己的]/姐姐/了。
孙涵/说/陆飞/忘掉/[自己的-他自己的]/姐姐/了。
周波/说/郭雄/忽视/[自己的-他自己的]/妹妹/了。
周波/说/黄奕/低估/[自己的-他自己的]/妹妹/了。
周波/说/张宇/佩服/[自己的-他自己的]/妹妹/了。
Appendix B: Prior discourse for contextual conditions
| 1. | 孙涵的哥哥和黄奕的哥哥是截然相反的人, 孙涵的哥哥不停的问家里要钱。 |
| ‘Sunhan’s elder brother and Huangyi’s elder brother are completely opposite in personality. Sunhan’s elder brother keeps asking the family for money.’ | |
| 2. | 陆飞的哥哥曾经和周波的哥哥是很好的朋友, 陆飞的哥哥因为周波的哥哥的离世每天闷闷不乐。 |
| ‘Lufei’s elder brother used to be close friends with Zhoubo’s elder brother. Lufei’s elder brother has been gloomy every day because of Zhoubo’s elder brother’s passing.’ | |
| 3. | 黄奕的弟弟和张宇的弟弟是同班同学, 张宇的弟弟却身体不好常常吃药。 |
| ‘Huangyi’s younger brother and Zhangyu’s younger brother are classmates. Zhangyu’s younger brother has poor health and often takes medicine.’ | |
| 4. | 陆飞的弟弟比张宇的弟弟更有存在感, 张宇的弟弟的存在从不会被家里人提及。 |
| ‘Lufei’s younger brother is more noteworthy than Zhangyu’s younger brother. Zhangyu’s younger brother is never mentioned by his family.’ | |
| 5. | 郭雄的姐姐和孙涵的姐姐一起长大, 郭雄的姐姐总因为孙涵的姐姐的离世难过。 |
| ‘Guoxiong’s elder sister and Sunhan’s elder sister grew up together. Guoxiong’s elder sister is often sad about Sunhan’s older sister’s passing.’ | |
| 6. | 张宇的哥哥和郭雄的哥哥是从小一起长大的好朋友, 张宇的哥哥绝对不会引诱郭雄的哥哥去吸毒。 |
| ‘Zhangyu’s elder brother and Guoxiong’s elder brother have been good friends since childhood. Zhangyu’s elder brother would never coerce Guoxiong’s older brother to do drugs.’ | |
| 7. | 孙涵的姐姐和陆飞的姐姐有截然不同的性格, 孙涵的姐姐沉默寡言没有什么存在感。 |
| ‘Sunhan’s elder sister and Lufei’s elder sister have completely different personalities. Sunhan’s older sister is quiet and low key.’ | |
| 8. | 周波的妹妹不像郭雄的妹妹一样喜欢交际, 周波的妹妹总是待在家里不和别人交流。 |
| ‘Zhoubo’s younger sister is unlike Guoxiong’s younger sister, who enjoys socializing. Zhoubo’s younger sister always stays at home and doesn’t interact with others.’ | |
| 9. | 黄奕的妹妹和周波的妹妹一起面试, 周波的妹妹平时腼腆却在面试时能侃侃而谈。 |
| ‘Huangyi’s younger sister and Zhoubo’s younger sister attended an interview together. Though Zhoubo’s younger sister is usually shy, she spoke confidently during the interview.’ | |
| 10. | 张宇的妹妹和周波的妹妹同样年纪, 周波的妹妹能不靠任何人闯出一片天。 |
| ‘Zhangyu’s younger sister is the same age as Zhoubo’s younger sister. Zhoubo’s younger sister can make her way in the world without relying on anyone.’ |
Appendix C: Word frequency and stroke count for verbs and kinship terms
| Verb | First character stroke count | Second character stroke count | Log frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| 误会 wùhuì ‘misunderstand’ | 9 | 6 | 3.03 |
| 同情 tóngqíng ‘sympathize’ | 6 | 11 | 2.92 |
| 厌倦 yànjuàn ‘fed up’ | 6 | 10 | 2.87 |
| 忘掉 wàngdiào ‘forget’ | 7 | 11 | 2.80 |
| 怀念 huáiniàn ‘reminisce’ | 7 | 8 | 2.77 |
| 忽略 hūlüè ‘ignore’ | 8 | 11 | 2.70 |
| 忽视 hūshì ‘neglect’ | 8 | 8 | 2.57 |
| 低估 dīgū ‘underestimate’ | 7 | 7 | 2.48 |
| 佩服 pèifú ‘admire’ | 8 | 8 | 2.33 |
| 思念 sīniàn ‘think of’ | 9 | 8 | 2.22 |
| Kinship term | First character stroke count | Second character stroke count | Log frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| 哥哥 gēgē ‘elder brother’ | 10 | 10 | 3.57 |
| 弟弟 dìdì ‘younger brother’ | 7 | 7 | 3.53 |
| 姐姐 jiějiě ‘elder sister’ | 8 | 8 | 3.42 |
| 妹妹 mèimei ‘younger sister’ | 8 | 8 | 3.51 |
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- Direct pseudo-partitives in US English
- A baseline for object clitic climbing in Italian
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