Production and comprehension of intersentential pronominal reference in early child Bulgarian

An experimental study

Abstract

The paper presents results from a combined production and comprehension study addressing some of the factors which guide the establishment of intersentential pronominal reference in child and adult Bulgarian. We investigate the time course and different stages in the acquisition of null, personal and demonstrative pro-nouns and their specific anaphoric functions. We target possible age-induced changes in the salience hierarchy of referent features such as animacy and grammatical role. Following the general consent in the field of anaphora research, we assume a division of labour between different pronominal forms with respect to the salience of their referents. Based on the data of Bulgarian preschool children we investigate the validity of this form-function relation, its language-specific shape and its developmentally induced variation. The results reveal an initial prominence of animate referents which later on develops into preference for animate subjects. Although the investigated 3 to 5 year old Bulgarian children do not stick to the adult anaphora resolution strategy, they comply with the principle of the reversed mapping within the range of tested pronouns and react according to their salience criteria which promote animate subjects as the most prominent co-reference candidates.