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National audience; La présente étude propose de faire le point, à travers une sélection d’occurrences extraites d’un document commun, sur la manière dont la classe des pronoms est décrite dans une perspective cognitive. Il s’agit notamment de comprendre comment le traitement des pronoms s’insère dans une modélisation plus large du langage, et à l’inverse, comment celle-ci influence les perspectives sur la classe. Plus spécifiquement, hormis certaines modélisations de l’accès à la référence, c’est la Grammaire Cognitive de Langacker qui est considérée ici. Après une définition du terme même de perspective « cognitive », l’étude met en avant les caractéristiques partagées des pronoms dans ce modèle (spécification schématique, associée à un ancrage situationnel s’ils constituent des expressions nominales complètes ; fonction référentielle, à distinguer du défini). Elle propose ensuite un panorama des différentes sous-classes de pronoms. Elle fait apparaître notamment la centralité du pronom personnel (loin du statut de substitut abréviatif qu’il a pu avoir dans d’autres approches) et du démonstratif ; le rejet du principe de réagencement au profit de constructions ; le rejet du principe de pronoms « vides de sens » ; enfin, une extension de la notion d’impersonnel à we ou they. Le concept de « clivée en there », emprunté à Davidse (2000) et Reeve (2012) plutôt qu’à la Grammaire Cognitive, est également proposé.; The aim of the study is to review how cognitive approaches address the class of pronouns, through a selection of occurrences taken from a set document. In particular, the aim is to see how the treatment of pronouns in cognitive approaches fits into a broader theoretical model of language, and conversely, how the latter has influenced perspectives on the class. The main model considered here is more specifically Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar (CG), with the exception of a development on reference-based approaches. The study first specifies what is meant by a ‘cognitive’ approach, and goes on to establish the shared characteristics of pronouns in the CG framework (schematic specification, associated with grounding for full nominal expressions; referential function, to be distinguished from definiteness). The study then considers the various subclasses of pronouns. Among others, it brings out the central role of personal pronouns (far from the status of impoverished substitute they have in a number of other approaches) and demonstratives; a rejection of transformational syntax (reorganised constituents) in favour of constructions; a rejection of semantically ‘empty’ pronouns; and an extension of the notion of ‘impersonal’ to we or they. The concept of ‘there-cleft’, borrowed from Davidse (2000) and Reeve (2012) rather than CG, is also put forward.

International audience

National audience; Whilst the focus of Machine Translation (MT) has for a long time been the translation of planned, written texts, more and more research is being dedicated to translating speech-like texts (informal or spontaneous discourse or dialogue). To achieve high quality and natural translation of speech-like texts, the integration of context is needed, whether it is extra-linguistic (speaker identity, the interaction between speaker and interlocutor) or linguistic (coreference and stylistic phenomena linked to the spontaneous and informal nature of the texts). However, the integration of contextual information in MT systems remains limited in most current systems. In this paper, we present and critique three experiments for the integration of context into a MT system, each focusing on a different type of context and exploiting a different method: adaptation to speaker gender, cross-lingual pronoun prediction and the generation of tag questions from French into English.

Although it is true that some pronominalization phenomena are restricted by grammatical or semantic factors, others are better accounted for on informational grounds. Pronominalization is triggered not only by material which is omitted but also by material which is dislocated; therefore, the informational status of pronominalizable strings should also be taken into account, since thematic material must always occupy a dislocated position in Catalan, and dislocation may require clitic binding. Furthermore, as in Catalan sentence structure is intimately associated with prosody (with primary accent marking sentence boundary), considering the relationship between structure and prosody is vital for a unified account on pronominalization, since by doing so, some grammatical phenomena ruled out by some constraints posited in the literature will be accounted for.

International audience

While it is widely agreed today that autism involves a cognitive change(Baron-Cohen,1988), the main psychological models have put the explanatory weight on changes in such non linguistic neurocognitive variables as "theory of mind"(ToM),weak central coherence, or executive functioning...

Certain aspects of Catalan pronominalization cannot be described without taking into account how informational content is mapped onto sentence structure. In this paper, some data previously considered in the literature (mainly from Todoli’s “Els pronoms”) will be (re)analyzed considering the effects of information packaging articulation in Catalan in order to provide a more unified account. Information structure requirements are relevant for the analysis of the restrictions on pronominalization since, in Catalan, position in sentence structure reflects the pragmatic import of constituents. Viewing clitic binding as a result of a thematization procedure allows for a wider and more coherent approach to pronominalization, since proforms substitute not only for thematic material that is omitted but also for thematic material that is located in dislocated slots.

The goal of this study is to observe the use of referential expressions used by patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) at both discourse and syntactic levels. Discourses contain both new information and old, given information. One important aspect to produce a coherent discourse is to select an appropriate form to introduce new information and to refer to old or given information. Given information is typically encoded via pronouns while new information via full lexical NPs. The challenge for the speaker is to decide to what extent a referent is accessible to the hearer (Meyer & Bock, 1999). The speaker then has to select the appropriate form accordingly, ranging from a reduced form (pronoun) when the referent is assumed to be highly accessible or given, to a more explicit lexical form when it is assumed to be inaccessible (Givón, 1983). In addition, there is a strong tendency in conversational speech for given, accessible information to occur in subject position (Chafe, 1994). AD patients have been reported to show deficits in discourse production. Indeed their speech contains a high proportion of empty utterances and overuses pronouns (Almor et al. 1999, Berrewaerts et al; 2003). However some studies do not replicate those findings (Ska & Duong, 2005; Chapman et al., 1995). Following previous work, we hypothesize that AD patients should produce a higher proportion of third person pronouns and more pronouns with ambiguous reference. We also expect both groups to produce more pronouns in subject position. Finally we predict that because AD patients tend to shift conversational topics more often than controls (Berrewaerts et al., 2003), distances between pronouns and antecedents should be shorter. Twenty participants diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and twenty healthy controls matched for age, sex, level of education and socioeconomic status participated in the study. Spontaneous speech data were elicited by asking participants about biographical details. The data were transcribed and the following variables were examined: the proportion of third person pronouns over the total number of NPs, the syntactic position of each pronoun, the proportion of ambiguous pronouns, the distance between the pronoun and its antecedent. Our hypotheses are partially validated: contrary to previous findings, we do not observe an overuse of pronouns by AD patients. Our other hypotheses show significant differences between AD and controls. Finally we address some methodological concerns that we claim should be carefully taken into consideration in order to allow for comparisons across studies.

En partant de l'hypothèse de Rizzolatti et collègues (1998, 2007) d'un isomorphisme originaire entre phonétique et sémantique, l'article analyse le rapport entre les différences phonologiques et les différences sémantiques dans quatre ensembles de mots monosyllabiques italiens (monophonèmes, pronoms, verbes et adverbes) et montre que les signifiants tendent à s'opposer entre eux par le biais des traits phonologiques distinctifs comme les signifiés s'opposent par le biais de traits morphologiques et sémantiques. Par exemple, le premières personnes tendent à être relativement plus postérieures et graves, les deuxièmes, antérieures et aiguës et les troisièmes centrales et ouvertes. En outre, dans les paires adverbiales, les valeurs positives ou affirmatives tendent à être plus antérieures et aiguës que les valeurs négatives, qui sont généralement plus postérieures et graves., Partendo dall'ipotesi di Rizzolatti e colleghi (1998, 2007), di un isomorfismo originario tra fonetica e semantica, l'articolo analizza il rapporto tra differenze fonologiche e differenze semantiche in quattro insiemi di parole monosillabiche italiane (monofonemi, pronomi, verbi e avverbi), mostrando che i significanti tendono ad opporsi tra loro mediante i tratti fonologici distintivi come i significati si oppongono tra loro mediante tratti morfologici e semantici. Per esempio, le prime persone tendono ad essere relativamente posteriori e gravi, le seconde, anteriori e acute, le terze, centrali e aperte. Inoltre, nelle coppie avverbiali, i valori positivi o affermativi tendono ad essere più anteriori e acuti dei valori negativi, che sono in genere più posteriori e gravi.

The objective of this study was to explore writer identity in Mexican undergraduate students of Applied Linguistics writing in English. We focused on the participants' use of first person pronouns and the ways in which they conceptualized their identity as authors of their essays. We employed a combination of text analysis and discourse-based interview methodologies. Findings indicate that participants that made ample use of first person pronouns employed them to present personal experiences rather than to project a strong authorial self. By contrast, those who made little use of first person pronouns seemed to project stronger authorial selves by employing a broader range of stylistic choices. The use of first person pronouns is not essential in the development of strong authorial selves. Higher education should provide better opportunities and resources for students to learn how to project a strong authorial presence in the academic texts they write in English. El objetivo de este estudio fue explorar la identidad autoral en los textos en inglés de estudiantes universitarios mexicanos de Lingüística Aplicada. Analizamos el uso de pronombres en primera persona y la forma en la que los participantes conceptualizaban su identidad como autores de sus ensayos. Empleamos una combinación de análisis textual y entrevista basada en discurso. Los resultados indican que los participantes que hicieron un uso amplio de los pronombres en primera persona los emplearon para presentar experiencias personales más que para proyectar una identidad autoral fuerte. En cambio, los que hicieron poco uso de estos pronombres proyectaron una identidad autoral más fuerte a través del empleo de una variedad de recursos lingüísticos. El uso de pronombres en primera persona no es esencial en el desarrollo de una identidad autoral fuerte. La educación superior debería proporcionar mayores oportunidades y recursos para que los estudiantes aprendan a proyectar una presencia autoral fuerte en los textos académicos que redactan en inglés. L'objectif de cette étude fut celui d'explorer l'identité des étudiants universitaires Mexicains de Linguistique Appliquée, en tant qu'auteurs de textes en anglais. Nous avons analysé l'utilisation de pronoms en première personne et la forme dont les participants ont conceptualisé leur identité en tant qu'auteurs de ces essais. L'emploi d'une combinaison d'analyse textuelle et d'entretiens basée sur le discours. Les résultats montrent que les participants ayant utilisé amplement les pronoms en première personne ont fait cet exercice plus pour présenter des expériences personnelles, que pour projeter une forte identité d'auteur. En revanche, ceux qui les ont utilisés moins, ont projeté une identité d'auteur forte à travers l'utilisation d'une variété de ressources linguistiques. L'utilisation de pronoms en première personne n'est pas essentielle pour le développement d'une identité d'auteur forte. Il faudrait que l'éducation supérieure offre plus d'opportunités et de ressources afin que les apprenants projettent une plus forte présence d'auteur dans les textes qu'ils écrivent en anglais.

International audience

This study looks at Discourse-linking effects in Mauritian Creole relative clauses where the use of a resumptive pronoun triggers a reading whereby one or more individuals is selected from a contextually-defined subset of individuals. Mauritian Creole resumptives confirm Erteschik-Shir's (1992) hypothesis concerning the 'restrictive focus' reading. Resumption is also incompatible with Sells' (1984)'concept' reading. Furthermore, I look at the interaction between determiners and resumptive pronouns: it is observed that bare nouns and indefinite noun phrases cannot be the antecedent of a resumptive. As a consequence, it is not possible to observe the purportedly obligatory wide-scope reading of resumptives in Mauritian.

This article shows the existence of a similar irregular alternation in pronominal the morphology of Chang Naga and Southern Qiang, two distantly related Sino-Tibetan languages. This pattern is argued to be the trace from an older case marking system. On the basis of this hypothesis, a new analysis of pronominal systems in various languages of the family is presented., Cet article montre l'existence d'une alternance irrégulière similaire dans la morphologie des pronoms du chang naga et du qiang méridional, deux langues sino-tibétaines lointainement apparentées l'une avec l'autre. Cette alternation est analysée comme une rétention et comme la trace d'un système de cas en sino-tibétain, et sur la base de cette hypothèse, nous présentons une nouvelle analyse des systèmes pronominaux de diverses langues de cette famille.

Publication en ligne http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/department/events/langue/2007/proceedings/papers.aspx; International audience; This study looks at Discourse-linking effects in Mauritian Creole relative clauses where the use of a resumptive pronoun triggers a reading whereby one or more individuals is selected from a contextually-defined subset of individuals. Mauritian Creole resumptives confirm Erteschik-Shir's (1992) hypothesis concerning the 'restrictive focus' reading. Resumption is also incompatible with Sells' (1984)'concept' reading. Furthermore, I look at the interaction between determiners and resumptive pronouns: it is observed that bare nouns and indefinite noun phrases cannot be the antecedent of a resumptive. As a consequence, it is not possible to observe the purportedly obligatory wide-scope reading of resumptives in Mauritian.

Publication en ligne http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/department/events/langue/2007/proceedings/papers.aspx; International audience; This study looks at Discourse-linking effects in Mauritian Creole relative clauses where the use of a resumptive pronoun triggers a reading whereby one or more individuals is selected from a contextually-defined subset of individuals. Mauritian Creole resumptives confirm Erteschik-Shir's (1992) hypothesis concerning the 'restrictive focus' reading. Resumption is also incompatible with Sells' (1984)'concept' reading. Furthermore, I look at the interaction between determiners and resumptive pronouns: it is observed that bare nouns and indefinite noun phrases cannot be the antecedent of a resumptive. As a consequence, it is not possible to observe the purportedly obligatory wide-scope reading of resumptives in Mauritian.

Basing itself on a comparative study of English and French, this paper argues that prosody plays a relevant role in the semantic evolution of pronouns in natural languages. All other things being equal, the deaccenting of simplex 3rd-person personal pronouns contributes to favour their topical iterpretation, hence "disjoint reference" effects, which in turn trigger the development of marked strategies for the expression of reflexivity.

Pronouns play a decisive role in every natural language as the linguistic ele- ments that enable semantic cohesion of a text. Anaphora resolution (that is, the task of recovering in an automatic way the semantic content of pronouns) is therefore both an important theoretical issue and a ma jor technological challenge for any computer application that aims at a ?ner-grained semantic analysis of natural language texts. Binding Theory is a branch of generative linguistics devoted to discovering the principles that rule the distribution and interpretation of pronouns in a sentence. In this thesis, we present two algorithms for anaphora resolution inspired by three of the most influential approaches to Binding Theory in linguistics. Eventually, we combine insights issued from last 30 years of linguistic enquiry into an original computational framework and integrate them into a new algorithm. We also compare our computational approach with the purely semantic one recently proposed by Philippe Schenker., Les pronoms jouent un rôle primordial dans toutes les langues humaines en tant qu'éléments fondamentaux pour assurer la cohésion sémantique d'un texte. Le probl`eme de l'automatisation de la résolution d'anaphores (reconnaissance de leur contenu sémantique) est un défi majeur pour toute application informatique qui vise une analyse sémantique ?ne du langage humain. La théorie du liage (Binding Theory) est une partie de la linguistique générative dédiée à l'identi?cation des principes qui régissent la distribution et l'interpretation des pronoms dans une phrase. Nous proposons une procédure algorithmique pour intégrer les principes de la théorie du liage dans une sémantique computationnelle. Notre algorithme combine des éléments des trois plus importantes approches de la théorie du liage et les intègre dans une synthèse originale. Nous étudierons aussi les points de convergence et de divergence entre notre approche et celle purement sémantique récemment proposée par Philippe Schlenker.

A paraître dans un volume intitulé : "Comparing anaphors", Lita Lunquist et Iørn Korzen, éditeurs. Coppenhagen; Research of the last decades in semantics have tried to establish, for some restricted pronominal paradigms, that pronouns have a core meaning. Evans (1980) claims that there are few (somewhat) related models for pronouns, and Kamp (1981) implements a formalism with a unified meaning for pronouns In this paper, I will focus on French “personal” pronouns il, elle, le, lui, en, y , , and I will discuss some data difficult to accommodate in the classical Evans/Kamp models :a) Some varieties of pay-check sentences ; b) anaphora by pronouns to parts of idioms; c) revision sentences discussed by Strawson (1952). I will argue that this bunch of cases points to a unified theory of pronouns seen as “echos of mentions”, a mention being a discourse event involving the use of a linguistic expression of a certain kind. I try to make explicit what is metaphorically meant by the term “echo” in the above formulation.

This study of the SBW pronominal and TAM system is based on personal data collected in Nigeria on 8 languages : Zaranda, Langas, Dir, Danche, Baraza, Dott, Sigidi and Zaar. In their pronominal system, these languages have lost the gender, inclusive/exclusive and dual marks characteristic of AfroAsiatic (AA) languages. They have in common a system that has eroded and realigned to the point that (i) the exponents of persons are the same in the plural and the singular ; (ii) number is expressed by specific elements: a change of tone, a -N suffixed to the pronoun or addition of a suffix to the verb. It should be noted that the AA feminine mark *t- has become the general common mark for the 3s pronouns. As far as TAM systems are concerned, Zaar stands out as oddly original : it has three tone levels, when the others have two; it has ten TAM paradigms that can combine, when the others only have between three and five that don't ; it marks aspect, tense and mood, whereas the others don't express time in their verbal system, the future being a clear case of mood subcategorization. These differences have sociolinguistic origins: whereas all the other SBW languages are spoken in no more than one village and its wards, Zaar is spoken in over sixty, close to eighty if we add Sigidi. The Zaars have come to their present situation by incorporating exogeneous populations which are still identified by the clan system : Angas, Boi, Pyem, Jaar, etc. It has resulted in a complexification of the language which goes against the general assumption that when absorbing a large quantity of foreign population, a language goes through a process of pidginization.; Cette étude des systèmes de pronoms et de marques de conjugaison des langues SBW repose sur des matériaux originaux récoltés au Nigeria sur 8 langues : zaranda, langas, dir, danche, baraza, dott, sigidi et zaar. Dans leurs systèmes pronominaux, ces langues ont perdu les marques de genre, ainsi que le duel et l'opposition inclusif/exclusif caractérisiques des langues Afroasiatiques (AA). Ils ont en commun un système qui s'est érodé et recomposé au point que (i) les exposants de la personne sont les mêmes au singulier et au pluriel; (ii) le nombre est exposé par des éléments spécifiques: un changement tonal, un -N suffixé au pronom ou au verbe. On notera que la marque *t- du féminin est devenue la marque neutre pour les pronoms 3s. Pour les systèmes de conjugaison, le zaar frappe par son originalité: il a trois niveaux tonals, les autres langues deux; il a dix paradigmes de conjugaison qui peuvent se combiner, alors que les autres en ont entre trois et cinq qui ne se combinent pas; il marque l'aspect, le temps et le mode, alors que les autres ne marquent pas le temps dans leur système verbal, le futur étant un exemple clair de sous-catégorisation modale. Ces différences ont une origine sociolinguistique: alors que les autres langues SBW sont généralement parlées dans un seul village, le zaar en couvre soixante, près de quatre-vingt si l'on y inclut le sigidi. Les Zaar ont acquis leur statut actuel en incorporant des populations exogènes qui sont identifiées par le système des clans: Angas, Boi, Pyem, Jaar, etc. Il en résulte une complexification de la langue qui contredit l'opinion générale selon laquelle, par absorbtion d'une grande quantité de population exogène, une langue subit un processus de pidginisation.

Between the ages of 1;6 and 3;0, various markers are used by children to designate themselves: the null form, preverbal vowels, third person, second person, and first person pronouns (il/elle, moi, tu, je.). Between 2;6 and 3;0, the use of “je” is stabilized and the other markers tend to disappear in the subject position when the child refers to himself. At the same time, children start manipulating aspects and modalities and they make narratives. We analyze selfwords in the longitudinal data of two French-speaking children and one English speaking child in order to elaborate hypotheses on the progression of children's use of selfwords and to make correlations with other factors in children's development.