Animacy and resumption at the border of cognition and grammar

人类语言的结构是独特的，因为它经常需要我们将两个距离很远的表达联系在一起。这是语言使用者认知压力的一个来源，因为一个表达可能出现在远离它必须被解释的地方，通常除了缺席（间隙）之外，没有任何听觉或视觉线索可以指向解释的地点。例如，在“你认为该法案将帮助谁？"的问题中，“who”应该被解释为“help”的宾语，即使它的发音早了很多个单词，而且早了几秒钟。在某些语言中，可以选择性地使用代词（如在伪英语中，“你认为该法案将帮助他们？”）。这个项目的目标是更好地理解可选性的来源，以及为什么有些语言有这种表达手段，而有些语言没有。代词的使用是否反映了语言使用者对有限认知资源的动态反应？或者它反映了特定语言的约定俗成的语法过程？该项目将为本科生和研究生提供实验方法，实地考察和数据分析方面的研究机会和培训。它还将以协同增效的方式为旨在分享土著语言知识的一系列面向公众的活动提供投入。这个项目测试了一个新的假设：即，animacy，一个人是否活着的属性，是使用指示代词的一个关键因素。它将比较两种在使用这些代词方面表现出相似性的基因无关的语言。本课题将检验一个假设，即宾语位置上的选择性代词，其所指对象越有生命力，就越容易被接受。将进行一系列配对实验，结合眼动追踪和判断研究，以具体对比在整个语法中编码四向生命系统的语言和没有语法生命区分的语言的特定语法资源。通过这种比较，作为概念范畴的生命性将区别于作为形态句法范畴的生命性。该项目将涉及跨语言的可接受性和理解研究。对于语法上编码生命性的语言，两个理解研究将被用来追踪涉及不同生命性的共论元的关系分句的增量理解。其结果将带来新的证据承担三个相关的问题：语法中的可选性问题，代词和空白之间的关系，以及语言使用者如何理解代词在真实的时间。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的，通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。

Human language is uniquely structured in that it often requires us to link together two expressions at a distance. This is a source of cognitive pressure for language users, because one expression can appear far apart from where it must be interpreted and usually there is no audible or visible cue to the site of interpretation other than absence (a gap). For example, in the question “Who do you think the bill will help?”, “who” should be interpreted as the object of “help” even though it is pronounced many words, and several seconds, earlier. In some languages, a resumptive pronoun can optionally be used (as in pseudo-English, “Who do you think the bill will help them?”). The goal of this project is to better understand the source of the optionality, and why some languages have this expressive device, while others do not. Does the use of a pronoun reflect a language user’s dynamic reaction to limited cognitive resources? Or does it reflect conventionalized grammatical processes of particular languages? The project will provide research opportunities and training in experimental methods, fieldwork, and data analysis to undergraduate and graduate students. It will also feed synergistically into a range of public-facing activities that aim to share knowledge about indigenous languages. This project tests a new hypothesis: namely, that animacy, the property of whether or not an individual is alive, is a key factor in the use of resumptive pronouns. It will compare two genetically unrelated languages that show similarities in the use of these pronouns. The project will test the hypothesis that an optional resumptive pronoun in object position is more acceptable the more animate its referent is. A series of paired experiments combining eye-tracking and judgment studies will be conducted to specifically contrast the particular grammatical resources of a language that encodes a four-way animacy system throughout its grammar and a language with no grammatical animacy distinctions. Through this comparison, animacy as a conceptual category will be distinguished from animacy as a morphosyntactic category. The project will involve acceptability and comprehension studies across languages. For the language that encodes animacy grammatically, two comprehension studies will be used to trace the incremental comprehension of relative clauses involving co-arguments of differing animacies. The result will bring novel evidence to bear on three related issues: the problem of optionality in grammar, the relationship between resumptive pronouns and gaps, and how language users comprehend resumptive pronouns in real time.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.