ACTA LINGUISTICA TOM. 37 (A MTA NYELVTUDOMÁNYI KÖZLEMÉNYEI, 1987)
1987 / 1-4. sz. - PLÉH, CS.-MACWHINNEX, B.: Anaphora resolution in Hungarian
ANAPHORA RESOLUTION IN HUNGARIAN 113 Experiment II was designed to clarify these precedence relations between the formal and the pragnatic cues. We wanted to see whether anaphoras are obligatorily processed even if they are not required for the interpretation of the sentence. A reading time experiment was designed to obtain some rough measures of processing load with the same list used in Experiment I. Experiment II: Anaphora resolution in reading Methods Subjects. Sixteen undergraduate psychology stuudents from Lorand Eotvos University in Budapest participated in the experiment on a volunteer basis. All had already some experience as subjects in reading time experiments using a video screen. Design. The same list was used as in Experiment I in the same random order. However, half of the subjects were presented with an ascending and half of them with a descending version of the list. This was done to counterbalance possible ordering effects. Since an initial analysis of variance indicated that order of presentation had no effect here, data will be treated in a 2 X 2 X 3 within subject design with Anaphora Type, Verb activity and Verb token as factors, the same way as in Experiment I. Precedure. Subjects had to read the sentences on a video screen controlled by a special-purpose microcomputer. Each sentence was broken down to its two clauses. The first clause was presented for 5 seconds. Immediately after the first clause disappeared, the second clause appeared on the screen. The subject could read this as long as he wanted. When he was ready to answer the "who jumped" question he pushed the space bar and gave his answer orally. Following a 10 seconds inter-stimulus interval the next sentence appeared on the screen. In this way two dependent measures were obtained: 1) the time from the onset of the second clause until the subject indicated the beginning of his answer and 2) the choice of the repeated subject alternative in the answers themselves. These two measures will be referred to as "reading time" and "choice". Results For the choice measure, the only significant effect was that of the anaphora type used F(l,15) = 9.56, p < .01 (see Figure 1). In contrast, the time to read the second clause was only influenced by the nature of the verb of the first Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 37, 1987