AUTHOR=Çokal Derya , von Heusinger Klaus 

TITLE=The role of alternatives in the cognitive processing of German demonstratives: insights from online and offline processing

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Language Sciences

VOLUME=3

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/language-sciences/articles/10.3389/flang.2024.1433482

DOI=10.3389/flang.2024.1433482

ISSN=2813-4605

ABSTRACT=<p>This study, employing eye-tracking reading and sentence completion experiments, explores the impact of competing antecedents on the German demonstratives <italic>der</italic> and <italic>dieser</italic>. It challenges prior assumptions, revealing that in competitive alternative antecedent contexts, processing <italic>dieser</italic> initially posed challenges, indicating sensitivity to alternatives. <italic>Dieser</italic> exhibited less processing difficulties than <italic>der</italic>, potentially influenced by a register effect. Consistent with previous findings, in the offline task, references to the non-prominent entity were similar for both demonstratives, but our online experiment shows functional differences in cognitive processes between the two in reading. Our results suggest that <italic>Thematic Role</italic> accounts better explain antecedent preferences for <italic>der</italic> and <italic>dieser</italic> than <italic>Centering Theory</italic>.</p>