Compound-internal anaphora : evidence from acceptability judgements on Italian argumental compounds
Lami, Irene LU
and van de Weijer, Joost
LU
(2022)
In Morphology
32(4).
- Abstract
- The particular properties of argumental compounds in Italian pose interesting theoretical challenges, and investigations of possible syntactic operations within this type of complex words have resulted in conflicting conclusions. Regarding compoundinternal anaphora, some researchers exclude the possibility that pronouns can refer to the non-head, while others do not. However, these findings have been based on researchers’ intuitions and on occurrences in language corpora, and while intuitions have been shown to give contrasting results, the absence of a grammatical structure in a corpus should not be taken as evidence that the structure is not possible. The present study aims to experimentally determine the possibility of compound-internal... (More)
- The particular properties of argumental compounds in Italian pose interesting theoretical challenges, and investigations of possible syntactic operations within this type of complex words have resulted in conflicting conclusions. Regarding compoundinternal anaphora, some researchers exclude the possibility that pronouns can refer to the non-head, while others do not. However, these findings have been based on researchers’ intuitions and on occurrences in language corpora, and while intuitions have been shown to give contrasting results, the absence of a grammatical structure in a corpus should not be taken as evidence that the structure is not possible. The present study aims to experimentally determine the possibility of compound-internal pronominal reference based on structural properties of compounds and referential expressions. Judgements were obtained from 140 Italian native speakers who rated the acceptability of sentences containing a pronoun (null or overt) referring to the argument element of an argumental compound. The results indicate that compoundinternal anaphoric reference is acceptable in the case of left-headed compounds and, to a somewhat lesser extent, of verb-noun compounds. The argument element of right-headed compounds, however, does not appear to be available to anaphoric reference. Referential expressions also play a role in the degree of acceptability, with left-headed compounds allowing null form anaphora to a greater extent. These results provide new evidence on compound-internal pronominal reference and give important insights into the processing of argumental compounds. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5d665086-0955-4419-a23f-ac92aa148585
- author
- Lami, Irene
LU
and van de Weijer, Joost
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022-12
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Compounds, Italian compounds, Pronominal anaphora, Acceptability judgement, Argumental compounds, Outbound anaphora
- in
- Morphology
- volume
- 32
- issue
- 4
- pages
- 30 pages
- publisher
- Springer
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85136970093
- ISSN
- 1871-5656
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11525-022-09398-w
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 5d665086-0955-4419-a23f-ac92aa148585
- alternative location
- https://rdcu.be/cTWly
- date added to LUP
- 2022-08-21 12:35:51
- date last changed
- 2022-12-09 08:10:30
@article{5d665086-0955-4419-a23f-ac92aa148585,
abstract = {{The particular properties of argumental compounds in Italian pose interesting theoretical challenges, and investigations of possible syntactic operations within this type of complex words have resulted in conflicting conclusions. Regarding compoundinternal anaphora, some researchers exclude the possibility that pronouns can refer to the non-head, while others do not. However, these findings have been based on researchers’ intuitions and on occurrences in language corpora, and while intuitions have been shown to give contrasting results, the absence of a grammatical structure in a corpus should not be taken as evidence that the structure is not possible. The present study aims to experimentally determine the possibility of compound-internal pronominal reference based on structural properties of compounds and referential expressions. Judgements were obtained from 140 Italian native speakers who rated the acceptability of sentences containing a pronoun (null or overt) referring to the argument element of an argumental compound. The results indicate that compoundinternal anaphoric reference is acceptable in the case of left-headed compounds and, to a somewhat lesser extent, of verb-noun compounds. The argument element of right-headed compounds, however, does not appear to be available to anaphoric reference. Referential expressions also play a role in the degree of acceptability, with left-headed compounds allowing null form anaphora to a greater extent. These results provide new evidence on compound-internal pronominal reference and give important insights into the processing of argumental compounds.}},
author = {{Lami, Irene and van de Weijer, Joost}},
issn = {{1871-5656}},
keywords = {{Compounds; Italian compounds; Pronominal anaphora; Acceptability judgement; Argumental compounds; Outbound anaphora}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{4}},
publisher = {{Springer}},
series = {{Morphology}},
title = {{Compound-internal anaphora : evidence from acceptability judgements on Italian argumental compounds}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11525-022-09398-w}},
doi = {{10.1007/s11525-022-09398-w}},
volume = {{32}},
year = {{2022}},
}