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Abstract

Three experiments tested the proposition that reference assignment is delayed, that is, interpretation is not completed, until some point after the reference term has been read. Subjects were presented with sentences containing either pronominal or elliptical references. The point at which pragmatic inferences could be used was manipulated. The results showed that subsequent content influenced both assignment times (experiments one and two) and reading times (experiment three). This result held for unambiguous elliptical references as well as for both ambiguous and unambiguous pronouns. The results support the proposal that assignment is delayed, allowing subsequent content to influence the process. It is suggested that delayed assignment occurs whenever information needed to complete the processing must be retrieved from elsewhere in the sentence. The results are also contrasted with the view that pronoun assignment is based on heuristic strategies.

Keywords

Integration pronouns reference text comprehension

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The Comprehension of Anaphoric Relations

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