The division of main and subordinate discourse information in real-time comprehension

Abstract

The study examines the role of discourse structure representation in real-time comprehension, with a focus on how main discourse and subordinate discourse information guides language processing. Using a web-based visual world eyetracking paradigm, we investigated pronoun resolution in two types of relative clauses: appositive relative clauses (ARCs) and restrictive relative clauses (RRCs). While ARCs were generally considered as secondary and side-commentary information, aligning with subordinate discourse, RRCs were usually construed as part of the main discourse. Making use of this distinction between ARCs and RRCs, the current study examined pronoun resolution with two possible antecedents. In one condition (RRC), the two antecedents were part of the same discourse whereas in the other (ARC), they were in distinct discourse units. We found stronger competition between the two possible antecedents in the former condition than the latter. Our findings can potentially be explained by an encoding interference, where linguistic entities encoded with similar discourse status information can lead to an interference effect.