What do corpus data reveal about anaphora resolution? Spanish vs. Greek and the Type of Topic Hypothesis

Abstract

Anaphora Resolution (AR) is a pervasive phenomenon in natural languages. AR relates to how referring expressions (REs) (e.g., null/overt subject pronouns, and NPs) corefer with their antecedents in discourse. We use corpus methods to simultaneously compare AR in two null-subject languages (Spanish vs. Greek). We analyse a Spanish-native sample (CEDEL2 corpus, N = 341 REs analysed) and an equally-designed Greek-native sample (GLC corpus, N = 400 REs analysed), while keeping constant the text type (Chaplin narrative task), the annotation scheme (tagset), the tagging procedure, and the profile of the natives. Our corpus results reveal similarities in the way Spanish and Greek natives construct their narratives regarding the distribution of the information status of the REs (topic continuity/shift) and the distribution of characters (main/secondary) in discourse. Crucially, our two languages differ in relation to topicality (Greek capitalises on discourse topic whereas Spanish relies more on sentential topic), which leads to a different distribution in the realization of REs in discourse. These similarities and differences are accounted for by a new theoretical proposal, the Type of Topic Hypothesis (TTH), which postulates that there is a tension between discourse-topic vs. sentential-topic oriented languages. The TTH captures the idea that, while narratives are constructed in the same way in both languages, RE realization varies as a result of the discourse-topic orientation of Greek vs. the sentential-topic orientation of Spanish.