Processing of Null and Overt Pronouns in Adult Spanish Learners and Native Speakers: a Self-paced Reading Study

When a pronoun can grammatically and semantically refer to more than one noun (antecedent), a referential conflict arises. The issue of referential conflict becomes more complex in null-subject languages (the ones allowing omission of a word in the syntactic position of a subject). According to the Position of Antecedent Strategy (PAS) suggested by Carminati in Italian study (2002), in null subject languages, a null pronoun is co-referred with its subject antecedent, whereas an overt pronoun is co-referred with its object antecedent. However, there is inconsistency in confirmation and rejection of the PAS across the studies into different null subject languages. Therefore, we further expand the research into resolution of pronominal referential conflict in Spanish. To answer the questions how Spanish native speakers resolve null and overt subject pronouns and whether advanced Spanish L2 learners demonstrate similar traits, an experimental study was conducted. While participants were reading sentences word-by-word in a self-paced reading task, reaction time on each word was measured. Statistical analysis was performed with logarithmic reaction time residuals. In the groups of Spanish native speakers from Spain and Spanish L2 learners, there was no significant effect of the type of pronoun or the syntactic role of the antecedent. However, in the group of Spanish native speakers from Latin American countries, there was a significant effect (p = 0.0004). Hence, the PAS suggested by Carminati is confirmed on one data set, and rejected on the two other data sets. This means that it is necessary to deepen the research by applying new methods and manipulation with stimuli and experiment variables.