Comprehending the pronouns her, him, and his: Implications for theories of referential processing

The research investigated how comprehenders use structural information during co-reference resolution of the pronouns her, him, and his. In Experiment I, participants read sentences containing the pronoun her in object position, functioning as SPEC or NP and preceded by one of three types of NPs in subject position (e.g., "Mary/Mark/They saw her friend/yesterday. . ."). In Experiment 2, additional participants read similar sentences, containing the unambiguous pronouns him or his. The results of both experiments showed that the type of NP occurring in subject position influenced processing on both SPEC and NP pronouns. These results were inconsistent with claims that comprehenders consider only those antecedents that are structurally available as antecedents, following Chomskyʹs (1981) Binding Theory (Clifton, Kennison, & Albrecht, 1997; Nicol & Swinney, 1989). In Experiment 3, subject type did not influence processing of NP pronouns when the context contained a highly salient, structurally available antecedent. Implications for theories of referential processing are discussed.