Doctoral Dissertation Research: Resolution in context: Identity and nonidentity in anaphora resolution

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The goal of this dissertation research is to enhance the scientific understanding of sentence production and comprehension by examining the relationship between two types of linguistic construction and the surrounding linguistic and nonlinguistic context. Linguists have long been aware that speakers' awareness of what information is available in the broad context of utterance affects how they use and interpret language, but the exact effects of this knowledge on certain parts of the linguistic system have not been fully identified. The constructions under investigation in this dissertation are verb phrase ellipsis, in which a silent "gap" after an auxiliary verb is interpreted as containing full verbal content, and deaccenting, in which the pronunciation of a sentential constituent is de-emphasized to indicate that it is redundant. Previous analyses have suggested that both phenomena are licit only when they can be construed as identical to an overt antecedent that appears earlier in the linguistic discourse. This dissertation investigates evidence that previous formulations of identity for these phenomena have been too strict, and that they can be licensed and interpreted with respect to a broader range of linguistic antecedents, as well as with respect to information available in the nonlinguistic context. In addition to advancing the scientific understanding of these phenomena, this research may have technological and clinical applications. A more complete understanding of how listeners integrate linguistic and nonlinguistic information to interpret these constructions may lead to the development of artificial language systems that produce and interpret language more similarly to human speakers, as well as diagnosis and treatment strategies for speakers whose use of these constructions is impaired. The dissertation project focuses on three main research questions: (1) Is salient information from the nonlinguistic context considered during the interpretation of verb phrase ellipsis when there is a linguistic antecedent that could provide a reasonable interpretation? (2) Can deaccenting of a particular constituent be licensed by linguistic relations other than repetition, i.e., entailment, bridging, or world knowledge inferences? (3) Can deaccenting be licensed, in whole or in part, by information made salient in the nonlinguistic context? The two phenomena will be investigated using production, perception, and eye-tracking methodologies that examine the use and interpretation of verb phrase ellipsis and deaccenting both offline and in real time. The results will enhance models of how these constructions are licensed and interpreted in a more comprehensive discourse context than has previously been considered, by taking into account linguistically evoked information, inferrable information, and salient nonlinguistic information.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.