國立高雄大學圖資館 |

Vietnamese Pronouns in Discourse.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Vietnamese Pronouns in Discourse.
Author:	Ngo, Binh.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2019
Description:	113 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-02, Section: A.
Notes:	Advisor: Kaiser, Elsi;Simpson, Andrew.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International82-02A.
Subject:	Linguistics.
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28031496
ISBN:	9798662599468

Vietnamese Pronouns in Discourse.
Ngo, Binh.

Vietnamese Pronouns in Discourse. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2019 - 113 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-02, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Southern California, 2019.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

In every day communication, language users are often confronted by the presence of multiple competing linguistic choices. Referential form use (e.g. she, Mary, that girl), for example, is a puzzle that has attracted much attention from both linguists and psychologists. In ‘Mary talked to Sally because she was a friendly person’, the pronoun ‘she’ is ambiguous between ‘Mary’ and ‘Sally’. Why does the speaker choose to use ‘she’ instead of an unambiguous form (e.g. ‘Mary’, ‘Sally’)? How does the listener recognize the speaker’s intention despite the ambiguity? These questions are further complicated in a language like Vietnamese in which pronouns are not just function words like English ‘he/she’ but they are derived from a complex kinship system. In my dissertation, I investigate speakers’ choice of referential form in Vietnamese focusing on pronouns. Through a series of experiments, I probe a range of structural and discourse factors which may influence the comprehension as well as the production of Vietnamese pronouns. In sum, these studies aim to broaden our understanding of the impact of universal and language-specific features on referential form choice in communication.To provide a comprehensive picture of Vietnamese pronoun behavior considering their crosslinguistic unique features, in Chapter 2, I conducted a narrative experiment to examine the overall distribution of Vietnamese referential forms, particularly null pronouns (i.e. empty/zero anaphora) and overt pronouns (e.g. kinship term pronouns). I incorporated structural factors such as grammatical roles and grammatical parallelism into the analysis to obtain a detailed characterization of Vietnamese pronoun production. I found that both grammatical roles and grammatical parallelism have a strong influence on Vietnamese speakers’ choice of referential form. When both the referent and the referring expression are in the grammatical subject position (i.e. subject parallelism), speakers mostly use pronouns (null and overt pronouns). In contrast, the lack of parallelism results in mostly NPs. Interestingly, hints of parallelism effect are also found in object parallelism in which pronouns are used more than in the non-parallel cases. These results highlight the importance of considering the grammatical roles of not only the antecedent but also the anaphoric expression (e.g. pronouns) in investigating referential form choice.Vietnamese speakers in the narrative experiment (Chapter 2) use both null and overt pronouns equally. This finding poses a challenge to the salience-hierarchical approach (e.g. Ariel, 1990; Givon, 1983) which suggests that null pronouns are often used to referred to highly salient referents (i.e. those in subject position) while overt pronouns are used for less salient referents (e.g. those in object position). Chapter 3 of my dissertation examined whether there is a division of labor between null and overt pronouns in Vietnamese. In the sentence completion studies of this chapter, I probed topicality, a discourse factor, while keeping grammatical roles constant. I found that topicality is a crucial factor influencing Vietnamese speakers’ choice of null and overt pronouns. Specifically, Vietnamese speakers mostly use null pronouns rather than overt pronouns when referring back to the topicalized referents in discourse. However, this null vs. overt pronoun distinction is only observed in production but not in comprehension. In sum, the results from Chapters 2 and 3 support the form-specific multiple-constraints approach (Kaiser & Trueswell, 2008) since Vietnamese null and overt pronoun behaviors do not exhibit a clear hierarchy.One intriguing finding in Chapter 3 is Vietnamese speakers’ tendency to refer back to the objects of sentences despite the fact that previous results (Chapter 2) show a strong subject preference. Furthermore, this object bias also challenges the well-known crosslinguistic subject bias (Chafe, 1976). In Chapters 4-5, I investigate whether the object bias is presence during real-time processing, or it is something that only emerges in off-line task (Chapter 3). One crucial piece of information required for these experiments is verbs’ implicit causality. Thus, in Chapter 4, I conducted a large-scale norming study of 162 Vietnamese implicit causality verbs since there was no prior verb database in Vietnamese. In addition to the verb norming, I also compared Vietnamese verbs to their English equivalents. The comparison shows a stronger object bias in Vietnamese. Keeping this in mind, in Chapter 5, I implemented the self-paced reading paradigm to examine the subject vs. object bias in Vietnamese as well as age cue effects, specific to Vietnamese kinship term pronouns, during online processing. I found that Vietnamese speakers have a tendency to initially associate the pronouns with preceding subject antecedents. This finding is in line with the subject preference found in the narrative study (Chapter 2). With regard to the object bias found in the sentence completion studies (Chapter 3) and the verb study (Chapter 4), these results suggest that verbs’ object-bias information is incorporated toward the end of sentence processing rather than during the processing of the pronoun itself, providing evidence for the clausal integration account (e.g. Garnham et al., 1996; Stewart et al., 2000). Regarding the use of age cues embedded on the pronouns, I found that Vietnamese speakers rapidly use age cues to successfully resolve the pronoun in the presence of verb bias.Taken together, this dissertation shows that Vietnamese speakers’ use of referential forms, particularly null pronouns and kinship term overt pronouns, are influenced by structural and discourse factors. Nevertheless, how the effects of these factors may manifest varies depending on the language. The results of the current work are in line with Kaiser & Trueswell’s (2008) form-specific multiple-constraints approach since Vietnamese null and pronouns lack a clear division of labor. These findings open doors to further investigation of Vietnamese pronouns, notably the null vs. overt pronoun choice, the underlying factors driving the object bias as well as the role of kinship features in pronoun resolution.

ISBN: 9798662599468Subjects--Topical Terms:

176897
Linguistics.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Grammatical roles

Vietnamese Pronouns in Discourse.
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100 1 $a Ngo, Binh. $3 886634
245 1 0 $a Vietnamese Pronouns in Discourse.
260 1 $a Ann Arbor : $b ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, $c 2019
300 $a 113 p.
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-02, Section: A.
500 $a Advisor: Kaiser, Elsi;Simpson, Andrew.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Southern California, 2019.
506 $a This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
520 $a In every day communication, language users are often confronted by the presence of multiple competing linguistic choices. Referential form use (e.g. she, Mary, that girl), for example, is a puzzle that has attracted much attention from both linguists and psychologists. In ‘Mary talked to Sally because she was a friendly person’, the pronoun ‘she’ is ambiguous between ‘Mary’ and ‘Sally’. Why does the speaker choose to use ‘she’ instead of an unambiguous form (e.g. ‘Mary’, ‘Sally’)? How does the listener recognize the speaker’s intention despite the ambiguity? These questions are further complicated in a language like Vietnamese in which pronouns are not just function words like English ‘he/she’ but they are derived from a complex kinship system. In my dissertation, I investigate speakers’ choice of referential form in Vietnamese focusing on pronouns. Through a series of experiments, I probe a range of structural and discourse factors which may influence the comprehension as well as the production of Vietnamese pronouns. In sum, these studies aim to broaden our understanding of the impact of universal and language-specific features on referential form choice in communication.To provide a comprehensive picture of Vietnamese pronoun behavior considering their crosslinguistic unique features, in Chapter 2, I conducted a narrative experiment to examine the overall distribution of Vietnamese referential forms, particularly null pronouns (i.e. empty/zero anaphora) and overt pronouns (e.g. kinship term pronouns). I incorporated structural factors such as grammatical roles and grammatical parallelism into the analysis to obtain a detailed characterization of Vietnamese pronoun production. I found that both grammatical roles and grammatical parallelism have a strong influence on Vietnamese speakers’ choice of referential form. When both the referent and the referring expression are in the grammatical subject position (i.e. subject parallelism), speakers mostly use pronouns (null and overt pronouns). In contrast, the lack of parallelism results in mostly NPs. Interestingly, hints of parallelism effect are also found in object parallelism in which pronouns are used more than in the non-parallel cases. These results highlight the importance of considering the grammatical roles of not only the antecedent but also the anaphoric expression (e.g. pronouns) in investigating referential form choice.Vietnamese speakers in the narrative experiment (Chapter 2) use both null and overt pronouns equally. This finding poses a challenge to the salience-hierarchical approach (e.g. Ariel, 1990; Givon, 1983) which suggests that null pronouns are often used to referred to highly salient referents (i.e. those in subject position) while overt pronouns are used for less salient referents (e.g. those in object position). Chapter 3 of my dissertation examined whether there is a division of labor between null and overt pronouns in Vietnamese. In the sentence completion studies of this chapter, I probed topicality, a discourse factor, while keeping grammatical roles constant. I found that topicality is a crucial factor influencing Vietnamese speakers’ choice of null and overt pronouns. Specifically, Vietnamese speakers mostly use null pronouns rather than overt pronouns when referring back to the topicalized referents in discourse. However, this null vs. overt pronoun distinction is only observed in production but not in comprehension. In sum, the results from Chapters 2 and 3 support the form-specific multiple-constraints approach (Kaiser & Trueswell, 2008) since Vietnamese null and overt pronoun behaviors do not exhibit a clear hierarchy.One intriguing finding in Chapter 3 is Vietnamese speakers’ tendency to refer back to the objects of sentences despite the fact that previous results (Chapter 2) show a strong subject preference. Furthermore, this object bias also challenges the well-known crosslinguistic subject bias (Chafe, 1976). In Chapters 4-5, I investigate whether the object bias is presence during real-time processing, or it is something that only emerges in off-line task (Chapter 3). One crucial piece of information required for these experiments is verbs’ implicit causality. Thus, in Chapter 4, I conducted a large-scale norming study of 162 Vietnamese implicit causality verbs since there was no prior verb database in Vietnamese. In addition to the verb norming, I also compared Vietnamese verbs to their English equivalents. The comparison shows a stronger object bias in Vietnamese. Keeping this in mind, in Chapter 5, I implemented the self-paced reading paradigm to examine the subject vs. object bias in Vietnamese as well as age cue effects, specific to Vietnamese kinship term pronouns, during online processing. I found that Vietnamese speakers have a tendency to initially associate the pronouns with preceding subject antecedents. This finding is in line with the subject preference found in the narrative study (Chapter 2). With regard to the object bias found in the sentence completion studies (Chapter 3) and the verb study (Chapter 4), these results suggest that verbs’ object-bias information is incorporated toward the end of sentence processing rather than during the processing of the pronoun itself, providing evidence for the clausal integration account (e.g. Garnham et al., 1996; Stewart et al., 2000). Regarding the use of age cues embedded on the pronouns, I found that Vietnamese speakers rapidly use age cues to successfully resolve the pronoun in the presence of verb bias.Taken together, this dissertation shows that Vietnamese speakers’ use of referential forms, particularly null pronouns and kinship term overt pronouns, are influenced by structural and discourse factors. Nevertheless, how the effects of these factors may manifest varies depending on the language. The results of the current work are in line with Kaiser & Trueswell’s (2008) form-specific multiple-constraints approach since Vietnamese null and pronouns lack a clear division of labor. These findings open doors to further investigation of Vietnamese pronouns, notably the null vs. overt pronoun choice, the underlying factors driving the object bias as well as the role of kinship features in pronoun resolution.
590 $a School code: 0208.
650 4 $a Linguistics. $3 176897
653 $a Grammatical roles
653 $a Implicit causality
653 $a Pronouns
653 $a Referential forms
653 $a Sentence processing
653 $a Topicality
690 $a 0290
710 2 $a University of Southern California. $b Linguistics. $3 886635
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 82-02A.
790 $a 0208
791 $a Ph.D.
792 $a 2019
793 $a English
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28031496