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Abstract

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of how pronoun and reflexive resolution preferences in English vary across different syntactic environments. Five structures were tested: coarguments, picture noun phrases, prepositional phrases, coordination, and comparatives. Results show that reflexives display a general preference for structurally local antecedents, but the strength of the preference varies significantly by environment; pronouns display a similarly variable, but stronger preference for nonlocal antecedents. Our findings suggest that complementarity between pronouns and reflexives may be a gradient phenomenon, with the robust complementarity observed in coargument anaphora occupying the endpoint of a graded continuum.

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