{"pk":30472,"title":"The Comprehension of Conceptual Anaphora in Discourse","subtitle":null,"abstract":"A primary constraint on using a pronominal anaphor is that it must agree\nwith its antecedent in number. However, there are situations in which\npronouns act as conceptual anaphors. For example, in the discourse, \"I\nthink I'll order a frozen margarita. I just love them.\", the pronoun\n\"them\" does not refer to a single margarita, but perhaps all the\nmargarltas the speaker has ever tasted. When anaphors operate in this\nway, they are often mismatched with their ILteral antecedent in number.\nThree situtations when conceptual anaphora occurs are identified: when\nreferring to the members of a Collective Set (as opposed to the set per\nse), a Multiply occurring Item or Event (v/ersus a Unique Item/Event), or\na Generic Type (versus a Specific Token). Two experiments are reported.\nThe first demonstrated that subjects consider a mismatched, plural\npronoun more natural than a matched, singular pronoun when it follows a\nCollective Set, Multiple Item/Event, or Generic Type noun. Conversely, subjects consider a matched, singular pronoun more natural when it follows an Individual Member of a set, Unique Item/Event, or Specific Token noun. The second experiment demonstrated that subjects comprehend a mismatched, plural pronoun faster than a matched, singular pronoun when it follows a Collective Set, Multiple Item/Event, or Generic Type\nnoun, but they comprehend a matched, singular pronoun faster when it follows an Individual Member, Unique Item/Event, or Specific Token noun. This suggests that when comprehenders encounter conceptual—though mismatched anaphors—they do not have to reinstate the multiple entities into their mental representations.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Presented Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5bx148qf","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Morton","middle_name":"Ann","last_name":"Gernsbacher","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Oregon","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"1986-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/30472/galley/20321/download/"}]}