Negative sentences are hard to process when they are presented out of context. When embedded in a context of plausible denial their processing difficulty decreases or is completely eliminated. We investigated in six behavioral experiments whether the processing of negation is eased in a denial context triggered by discourse markers (e.g.…

This paper studies the role of two different types of motivation that have been proposed to explain the use of subject personal pronouns in Spanish, namely their function as indications for the addressee to identify the subject's referent, and their suitability for expressing informational values such as contrastiveness or focus. This study…

This paper considers the anaphoric status of the pro-form "fer-ho" (do it) in Catalan [This paper contains some ideas included in Busquets (2005)]. I discuss some anaphoric properties of "fer-ho" as deep anaphora. I also compare these properties to those of other types of anaphora, like VPE and pseudogapping (pg). I show that…

It is suggested that twin discourse functions are served by thematization and topicalization, the former providing stable referential focus and the latter providing momentary referential focus. (Author/AM)

The language behavior of field-dependent and field-independent female college students was examined in three different communication conditions with respect to length and type of verbal output. The conditions were dialogue, warm monologue, and cold monologue. (Author/AM)