Year: 2022
Type: preprint
Abstract: Pro-drop is commonly seen in many languages, but its discourse motivations have not been well characterized. Inspired by the topic chain theory in Chinese, this study shows how character-verb usage continuity distinguishes dropped pronouns from overt references to story characters. We model the choice to drop vs. not drop as a function of character-verb continuity. The results show that omitted subjects have higher character history-current verb continuity salience than non-omitted subjects. This is consistent with the idea that discourse coherence with a particular topic, such as a story character, indeed facilitates the omission of pronouns in languages and contexts where they are optional.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Zhang, Shulin, Li, Jixing, Hale, John
Institutions: University of Georgia, City University of Hong Kong
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: National Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W4296412931