Pronoun Interpretation in the Second Language

A talk from the Department of Education Public Seminar series given by Prof. Roumyana Slabakova (Universities of Southampton and Iowa) and Prof. Lydia White (McGill University). A much-studied phenomenon in first language (L1) acquisition concerns the fact that children have greater difficulty in interpreting sentences with pronouns than with reflexives, the so-called Delay of Principle B Effect (DPBE). To investigate this issue, we look at the performance of adult learners of English (L1s French and Spanish) on sentences with reduced and full pronouns bound by referential and quantified antecedents. We will demonstrate that advanced learners are as accurate as native speakers, and will speculate on pedagogical implications of our findings.