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Purpose: The study explores referential cohesion in the narratives of bilingual preschool children with typical language development (TLD) and with specific language impairment (SLI). Referential cohesion requires integration of multiple discourse factors and is expected to pose a challenge for children with bilingual SLI due to weak proficiency in both languages. Method: Narratives were elicited from 45 bilinguals speaking Russian as the home language (L1) and Hebrew as the societal language (L2; 15 with SLI), 20 Hebrew-speaking monolinguals (10 with SLI), and 20 Russian-speaking monolinguals (10 with SLI) using a story retelling procedure. Bilinguals were tested in both languages. Analyses examined the effect of impairment (SLI vs. TLD) in bilinguals and monolinguals. Language effects were examined in cross-language comparisons of bilinguals (L1 vs. L2) and in differences between monolingual groups (Russian vs. Hebrew speakers) for the use of referential expressions. Results: Bilingual children with SLI used a higher proportion of pronouns for character introduction and had fewer pronouns, which have been described as 'adequate' (Colozzo & Whitely, 2014) than bilingual children with TLD. No language effect emerged for bilinguals, who performed similarly in their L1 and L2, but a significant cross-linguistic difference emerged in the monolingual data: Russian-speaking children mainly used nouns to introduce and maintain characters, whereas Hebrew-speaking children mainly used pronouns for introduction and maintenance of characters. Conclusion: The difficulty of children with SLI in creating a referential connection between a pronoun and a noun phrase is discussed in light of the interaction of local and global processes in narratives, which is shown to be weaker in children with SLI., The current study investigates referential cohesion in narratives of bilingual children with typical language development (TLD) and with specific language impairment (SLI). The study emerged from observations of how bilingual [...]

The use of repeated expressions to establish coreference allows an investigation of the relationship between basic processes of word recognition and higher level language processes that involve the integration of information into a discourse model. In two experiments on reading, we used eye tracking and event-related potentials to examine whether repeated expressions that are coreferential within a local discourse context show the kind of repetition priming that is shown in lists of words. In both experiments, the effects of lexical repetition were modulated by the effects of local discourse context that arose from manipulations of the linguistic prominence of the antecedent of a coreferentially repeated name. These results are interpreted within the context of discourse prominence theory, which suggests that processes of coreferential interpretation interact with basic mechanisms of memory integration during the construction of a model of discourse.

The generation of referring expressions is one of the most difficult tasks in natural language processing. Keeping the focus on computational, algorithmic and pragmatic issues, the exercise of developing one particular kind of referring expression has been carried out. By interpreting Grice's maxims of conversational implicature, an algorithm for the generation of referring expressions which is significantly simpler and faster has been developed. A simple, nonliteral computational interpretation of the Gricean maxims seems to be preferable.

Experiments were conducted on children's understanding of speakers' meaning in referential communication when ambiguous referential utterances are used. Children were asked about the knowledge sufficiency of vignettes containing such utterances and requested to identify the referent. Results confirmed that memory variablesand response decision processes have an effect on the interpretation of ambiguous referential utterances and revealed that even 5-year old children arehighly capable of evaluating knowledge sufficiency.

We applaud Millikan's psychologically plausible version of the causal theory of reference. Her proposal offers a significant clarification of the much-debated relation between concepts and beliefs, and suggests positive directions for future empirical studies of conceptual development. However, Millikan's revision of the causal theory may leave us with no generally satisfying account of concept individuation in the mind.