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把两个远距离的表达联系在一起。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离必须解释的地方很远的地方，而且除了缺失（间隙）之外，通常没有任何可听或可见的线索提示解释地点。例如，在“你认为这项法案对谁有帮助？”，“who”应该被理解为“help”的宾语，尽管它的发音要比“help”早很多单词，而且要早几秒钟。在某些语言中，可以选择性地使用恢复代词（例如在伪英语中，“谁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方式，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？还是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。它还将协同促进一系列面向公众的活动，旨在分享有关土著语言的知识。这个项目测试了一个新的假设：即生命，即一个人是否活着的属性，是使用恢复代词的一个关键因素。它将比较两种基因无关的语言，它们在使用这些代词方面表现出相似性。该项目将测试一个假设，即一个可选的恢复代词在宾语位置上越有活力，它的指称物就越容易被接受。将进行一系列结合眼球追踪和判断研究的配对实验，具体对比一种语言的特定语法资源，这种语言在其语法中编码了四向动画系统和一种没有语法动画区分的语言。通过这种比较，将区分作为概念范畴的生命性和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性研究。对于在语法上编码生命性的语言，我们将使用两项理解研究来追踪涉及不同生命性的共同论证的关系分句的增量理解。这一结果将为以下三个相关问题提供新的证据：语法的可选性问题、恢复代词与间隙的关系以及语言使用者如何实时理解恢复代词。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.