Browsing by Author "Nakhaei, Mahyar"

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    The Interplay of Memory and Sentence Structure on the Resolution of Persian Pronouns
    (2019-07-09) Nakhaei, Mahyar; Storoshenko, Dennis Ryan; Ritter, Elizabeth; Sabbaghan, Soroush
    One of the most prominent hypotheses in the realm of pronoun resolution in pro-drop languages is the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis (PAH) according to which null pronouns are more likely to select subject antecedents whereas overt pronouns are more likely to be linked with non-subject antecedents. A plethora of studies attempts to examine the extension of PAH to several pro-drop languages. However, none has taken the differences between individuals into account. It has been claimed that the working memory capacity of individuals as one measure of individual difference might affect processing pronouns by native speakers of a language. I will show that the memory load has a facilitative role in the resolution of Persian pronouns whereas working memory of individuals is not a predictor variable. Moreover, overt pronouns behave more consistently with predictions of PAH especially when the memory load is low. Keywords: Pronouns, Pro-drop, PAH, Working Memory, Persian