The effect of noun phrase length on the form of referring expressions
Karimi, Hossein and Fukumura, Kumiko and Ferreira, Fernanda and Pickering, Martin J. (2014) The effect of noun phrase length on the form of referring expressions. Memory and Cognition, 42 (6). pp. 993-1009. ISSN 0090-502X (https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-014-0400-7)
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Abstract
The length of a noun phrase has been shown to influence choices such as syntactic role assignment (e.g., whether the noun phrase is realized as the subject or the object). But does length also affect the choice between different forms of referring expressions? Three experiments investigated the effect of antecedent length on the choice between pronouns (e.g., he) and repeated nouns (e.g., the actor) using a sentence-continuation paradigm. Experiments 1 and 2 found an effect of antecedent length on written continuations: Participants used more pronouns (relative to repeated nouns) when the antecedent was longer than when it was shorter. Experiment 3 used a spoken continuation task and replicated the effect of antecedent length on the choice of referring expressions. Taken together, the results suggest that longer antecedents increase the likelihood of pronominal reference. The results support theories arguing that length enhances the accessibility of the associated entity through richer semantic encoding.
ORCID iDs
Karimi, Hossein, Fukumura, Kumiko ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3449-9503, Ferreira, Fernanda and Pickering, Martin J.;-
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Item type: Article ID code: 50553 Dates: DateEventAugust 2014Published5 March 2014Published OnlineNotes: The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13421-014-0400-7 Subjects: Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > Psychology
Language and Literature > Philology. LinguisticsDepartment: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Psychological Sciences and Health > Psychology Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 26 Nov 2014 11:08 Last modified: 31 Aug 2024 00:49 Related URLs: URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/50553