Cover not available

In:Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Vietnamese Linguistics
Edited by Nigel Duffield, Trang Phan and Tue Trinh
[Studies in Language Companion Series 211] 2019
► pp. 275–300

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 13
Effects of grammatical roles and parallelism on referential form production in Vietnamese spoken and written narratives

 | University of Southern California, USA
 | University of Southern California, USA
 | University of Southern California, USA
Published online: 9 October 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.211.13ngo
Abstract
This study investigates the use of null and overt pronouns and noun phrases in Vietnamese spoken and written narratives, with a focus on referents’ grammatical roles and grammatical parallelism. Looking at Vietnamese allows us to address questions left open in prior work regarding the effects of pronominal form (null, overt) on reference resolution in different grammatical positions. Furthermore, looking at the use of Vietnamese pronouns adds typological breadth to the literature on reference resolution: Vietnamese overt pronouns differ typologically from pronouns in English-type languages as they also function as kin terms. Results from data we collected involving spoken and written narratives show that referential form choice is influenced not only by the grammatical role of the antecedent but also the grammatical role of the pronominal element. When the subject of the current clause refers to the subject of the preceding clause (subject parallelism), we find a high rate of (null and overt) pronouns. Lack of parallelism triggers mostly NPs. When the object of the current clause refers to the object of the preceding clause (object parallelism), more pronouns were produced than in non-parallel cases. Crucially, we find no clear differences in the distribution of null vs. overt pronouns, suggesting that grammatical roles and parallelism have the same effects on both pronoun types. Our results also show no effects of written vs. spoken modality, which indicates that modality does not play a role in the interaction between grammatical factors and referential form choice.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Grammatical roles and grammatical parallelism
    • 1.2Discourse pro-drop languages
    • 1.3Vietnamese
  • 2.Data collection
    • 2.1Method
    • 2.2Data analysis
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Referential forms in written and spoken narratives
    • 3.2Comparing written and spoken results
  • 4.General discussion
  • Notes
  • References
References (48)
References
Alonso-Ovalle, Luis, Fernández-Solera, Susana, Frazier, Lyn, & Clifton Jr., Charles. 2002. Null vs. overt pronouns and the topic-focus articulation in Spanish. Italian Journal of Linguistics 14: 151–170.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Amano, Shigeaki, & Kondo, Tadahisa. 2000. Nihongo-no Goi-tokusei (Lexical properties of Japanese), Vol. 7. Tokyo: Sansei-do.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ariel, Mira. 1990. Accessing Noun-phrase Antecedents. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barbosa, Pilar. 2011. Pro-drop and theories of pro in the minimalist program, Part 2: Pronoun deletion analyses of null subjects and partial, discourse and semi pro-drop. Language and Linguistics Compass 5(8): 571–587. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bel, Aurora, Perera, Joan, & Salas, Namyé. 2010. Anaphoric devices in written and spoken narrative discourse: Data from Catalan. Written Language and Literacy 13(2): 236–259. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brennan, Susan E., Friedman, Marilyn W., & Pollard, Carl. 1987. A centering approach to pronouns. In Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Stanford, California, 155–162. Stroudsberg PA: Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carminati, Maria Nella. 2002. The Processing of Italian Subject Pronouns. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L. (ed.). 1980. The Pear Stories: Cognitive, Cultural, and Linguistic Aspects of Narrative Production. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In Subject and Topic, Charles Li (ed.), 25–56. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L. & Tannen, Deborah. 1987. The relation between written and spoken language. Annual Review of Anthropology 16(1): 383–407. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chambers, Craig & Smyth, Ron. 1998. Structural parallelism and discourse coherence: A test of centering theory. Journal of Memory and Language 39(4): 593–608. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, Ping. 1986. Referent Introducing and Tracking in Chinese Narratives. PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Christensen, Matthew B. 2000. Anaphoric reference in spoken and written Chinese narrative discourse. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 28(2): 303–336.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clancy, Patricia M. 1980. Referential choice in English and Japanese narrative discourse. In The Pear Stories: Cognitive, Cultural, and Linguistic Aspects of Narrative Production, Wallace L. Chafe (ed.), 127–202. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1982. Written and spoken style in Japanese narratives. In Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy, Deborah Tannen (ed.), 55–76 Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crawley, Rosalind A. & Stevenson, Rosemary J. 1990. Reference in single sentences and in texts. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 19(3): 191–210. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drieman, G. H. J. 1962. Differences between written and spoken languages: an exploratory study. Acta Psychologica 20: 78–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fedele, Emily. 2016. Discourse-level Processing and Pronoun Interpretation. PhD dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fukumura, Kumiko & Van Gompel, Roger P. 2010. Choosing anaphoric expressions: Do people take into account likelihood of reference? Journal of Memory and Language 62(1): 52–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy (ed.). 1983. Topic Continuity in Discourse: A Quantitative Cross-Language Study [Typological Studies in Language 3]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gordon, Peter C. & Chan, Davina. 1995. Pronouns, passives and discourse coherence. Journal of Memory and Language 34: 216–223. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gordon, Peter C., Grosz, Barbara J., & Gilliom, Laura A. 1993. Pronouns, names, and the centering of attention in discourse. Cognitive Science 17(3): 311–347. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K., Hedberg, Nancy, & Zacharski, Ron. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69(2): 274–307. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hinds, John. 1975. Third person pronouns in Japanese. In Language in Japanese Society, Fred C. Peng (ed.), 129–157. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1983. Topic continuity in Japanese. In Topic Continuity in Discourse: A Quantitative Cross-Language Study [Typological Studies in Language 3], Talmy Givón (ed.), 47–93. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horowitz, Milton W. & Newman, John B. 1964. Spoken and written expression: An experimental analysis. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 68(6): 640. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hurewitz, Felicia. 1998. A quantitative look at discourse coherence. In Centering Theory in Discourse, Marilyn A. Walker, Arvind K. Joshi & Ellen F. Prince (eds), 273–291. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaiser, Elsi & Trueswell, John C. 2008. Interpreting pronouns and demonstratives in Finnish: Evidence for a form-specific approach to reference resolution. Language and Cognitive Processes 23(5): 709–748. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kehler, Andrew. 2002. Coherence, Reference, and the Theory of Grammar. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Rethinking the SMASH approach to pronoun interpretation. In Reference: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Jeanette K. Gundel & Nancy Hedberg (eds), 95–122. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kehler, Andrew & Rohde, Hannah. 2013. A probabilistic reconciliation of coherence-driven and centering-driven theories of pronoun interpretation. Theoretical Linguistics 39(1): 1–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuroda, Shige-Yuki. 1965. Generative Grammatical Studies in the Japanese Language. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knut. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1979. Third person pronouns and zero anaphora in Chinese discourse. In Syntax and Semantics 12: Discourse and Syntax, Talmy Givón (ed.), 311–335. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neeleman, Ad & Szendrői, Kriszta. 2007. Radical pro drop and the morphology of pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 38(4): 671–714. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ngo, Binh & Kaiser, Elsi. 2018. Effects of grammatical roles and topicality on Vietnamese referential form production. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 3(57): 1–12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Passonneau, Rebecca J. 1998. Interaction of discourse structure with explicitness of discourse anaphoric noun phrases. In Centering Theory in Discourse, Marilyn A. Walker, Arvind K. Joshi & Ellen F. Prince (eds), 327–358. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perfetti, Charles A. & Goldman, Susan R. 1974. Thematization and sentence retrieval. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13(1): 70–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simpson, Andrew, Wu, Zoe, & Li, Yan. 2016. Grammatical roles, coherence relations, and the interpretation of pronouns in Chinese. Lingua Sinica 2(1): 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smyth, Ron. 1994. Grammatical determinants of ambiguous pronoun resolution. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 23(3): 197–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stevenson, Rosemary J., Nelson, Alexander W. R., & Stenning, Keith. 1995. The role of parallelism in strategies of pronoun comprehension. Language and Speech 38(4): 393–418. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1980. Spoken/written language and the oral/literate continuum. In Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 207–218. Berkeley CA: BLS. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ueno, Mieko & Kehler, Andrew. 2016. Grammatical and pragmatic factors in the interpretation of Japanese null and overt pronouns. Linguistics 54(6): 1165–1221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, Marilyn A., Joshi, Arvind K., & Prince, Ellen F. 1998. Centering Theory in Discourse. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yang, Chin Lung, Gordon, Peter C., Hendrick, Randall & Wu, Jei Tun. 1999. Comprehension of referring expressions in Chinese. Language and Cognitive Processes 14(5–6): 715–743. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yang, Chin Lung, Gordon, Peter C., Hendrick, Randall, & Hue, Chih Wei. 2003. Constraining the comprehension of pronominal expressions in Chinese. Cognition 86(3): 283–315. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue