Abstract
This final chapter concludes our explorations into our ERA model. Thus far, we have reviewed anaphoric data from English, Dutch, German, Chinese, Japanese and Korean which has informed the theoretical literature.
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Notes
- 1.
In the pragmatic languages, one cross-linguistic difference we could see is how anaphoric items have been placed in opposition to each other, through either Q- or M-scales.
- 2.
Therefore children can locally bind through both processors, but realize the possibility of an LD binding antecedent with, say, a rudimentary pragmatic strategy (e.g. selected via the most topically prominent antecedent). This, then, can encourage development of pragmatic processing in relation to LD dependencies, something which the sentence processor cannot handle.
- 3.
For instance, the fact that one can see minor yet persistent LD binding in English by Chinese learners indicates that the pragmatic routine has not been fully suppressed even at an advanced level—nor is it ever expected to be, given the psycholinguistic observations.
- 4.
See also discussion on the systems of the three languages in Rooryck and Wyngaerd (2011).
- 5.
As we understand it, the pragmatic processor automatically resolves anaphoric dependencies based on the information it has access to, and it is not constrained by the efficiency requirement of immediate resolution leading to local binding (as applied to the sentence processor). However, given that Levinson (2000) argued for default generalized conversational implicature, and in Huang’s RNGPTA where local coreference is processed by an I-implicature (which is assumed to be default, following Levinson’s theory), the efficiency requirement is meet halfway, only departing this requirement when there are competing antecedents.
- 6.
It could be that the pragmatic processor only deals with the LD interpretation, or that it processes local antecedence again, or takes the result of the sentence processor and works on the LD antecedent only. These possibilities require further research.
- 7.
As it currently stands, a pragmatic hypothesis of anaphora can hold for syntactic languages like English as discussed by Huang (2000), where his RNGPTA does appear to make correct predictions. As discussed for non-argument reflexives, this is required in order to allow a principled pragmatic interpretation. As applied to argument reflexives, on the other hand, the pragmatic processor works alongside the sentence processor, allowing for LD effects due to the pragmatic processor, indicating that the pragmatic apparatus is available for such cases. However, this is rarely accessed, as discussed.
- 8.
Recall in the clinical studies there is a movement towards explaining inaccurate binding through processing due to poor working memory. O’Grady (2005: 196) appealed to the limited computational space as a factor for language development. Working memory effects have, however, not been analysed alongside the ERA model here, and that is a topic for future research.
- 9.
Hazelkamp (2018) in an ambitious study suggested a ‘multistream hypothesis’, proposing that individual variation in processing experiments can be traced to having either dominant syntactic or semantic processing streams. However, the experiments conducted could not confirm such a hypothesis—variation does exist but the exact cause remains unexplained (it could be that one stream is very weak with a particular routine, as argued above in the neurolinguistic perspective). In any case, is it possible to create a typological psycholinguistic view of how languages prefer each stream? In essence, this could be done by virtue of reflexive pronoun processing routine strength.
- 10.
Also consider the memory mode, declarative versus procedural (Ullman 2001).
- 11.
In discussing other- versus self-directed verbs, Haspelmath (2008) pointed out that in a society where people would only shave others, the verb ‘shave’ would naturally obtain an other-directed meaning, and in turn would be reflected in the speech frequency, reinforcing its non-reflexive use. See also König and Siemund (2000) for discussion around reflexive forms as related action types.
- 12.
Similar to how regular versus irregular verbs are acquired—while there are clear diachronic reasons why this distinction is made, it has no synchronic currency (apart from groupings), hence inductive learning is an important early mechanism.
- 13.
Another question would be: does the sentence processor need to fail to find an index in order for the pragmatic processor to process non-argument reflexives, or is it the case that the system has evolved to simply allow the pragmatic processor to be the first point of call? As reviewed in Sect. 3.5, non-argument processing appears to take longer, which could suggest that this is due to either the switch from the sentence to the pragmatic processor, or simply the amount of time the pragmatic processor needs to process antecedence.
- 14.
Measuring pupil dilation is also a bonus.
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Sperlich, D. (2020). A Final Synthesis. In: Reflexive Pronouns: A Theoretical and Experimental Synthesis. Language, Cognition, and Mind, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63875-7_4
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