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Anaphora and branching direction in Japanese*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

William O'Grady ,
Sook Whan Cho  and
Yutaka Sato
William O'Grady*
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Sook Whan Cho
Affiliation:
Sogang University
Yutaka Sato
Affiliation:
Hokkaido University
*
Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA.
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Abstract

This paper constitutes a response to Lust & Mazuka's (1989) defence of the Principal Branching Direction parameter and their critique of O'Grady, Suzuki-Wei & Cho's (1986) experiment, which purported to show that even children learning left-branching languages exhibit a preference for forward patterns of anaphora. Results of new experimental work with children learning Japanese are reported and shown to support the claim that there is a universal preference for forward patterns of anaphora in the early stages of language acquisition.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 473 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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Footnotes

[*]

In preparing this paper and doing the statistical analysis of our results, we benefited greatly from the advice and assistance provided by Craig Chaudron, Steven Ross and C.-H. Chung. We also wish to express our gratitude to Mrs Kimiko Yamamoto, who conducted the experiments in Tokyo. An earlier pilot study was conducted at the Rainbow Gakuen, a Japanese-language school in Honolulu; we thank the principal, staff and children of the Rainbow Gakuen for their help and co-operation. Finally, we thank two anonymous referees for their helpful and perceptive comments on an earlier version of this paper.

References

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