ESSLLI 2004 1 Susceptibility to discourse/semantic factors: An experimental approach to short-distance pronouns and logophoric reflexives Elsi Kaiser, Jeffrey T. Runner, Rachel S. Sussman & Michael K. Tanenhaus University of Rochester ekaiser@ling.rochester.edu Workshop on Semantic Approaches to Binding Theory ESSLLI, Nancy, August 2004 1. Introduction We present two experiments testing (i) the idea that “source-of-information” referents can antecede BT-incompatible reflexives in picture-NPs (Kuno 1987), and (ii) the observation that “perceiver-of- information” referents can antecede BT-incompatible pronouns (see Tenny 2003). The results show that discourse/semantic factors interact with BT, but affect pronouns with local antecedents more than reflexives with non-local antecedents. Structure of talk 1. Introduction 1.1 Basics of Binding Theory 1.2 Where standard Binding Theory runs into trouble 1.3 Focus of this talk: Picture-NPs 2. Experiment 1: Picture-choosing task 2.1 Predictions 2.2 Results 3. Experiment 2: Picture verification 3.1 Predictions 3.2 Results 3.3 Discussion of Experiments 1 and 2 4. Experiment 3: Eyetracking data (preliminary) 5. Conclusions 1.1 Basics of Binding Theory • Pronominal and reflexive noun phrases in English have a nearly complementary distribution. (1) a. Julius i saw him *i/j . b. Julius i saw himself i/*j . c. Julius i saw a picture of him *i/j . d. Julius i saw a picture of himself i/*j .