Task Effects in the Interpretation of Pronouns

Children acquiring a range of languages have difficulties in the interpretation of personal pronouns. Ongoing debates in the relevant literature concern the extent to which different pronoun types are subject to this phenomenon, as well as the role of methodology in relevant research. In this study, we use two different experimental tasks to examine the interpretation of pronominal elements in Greek, a language that has both strong pronouns and pronominal clitics. Results reveal a complete absence of problems in the interpretation of clitics irrespective of task. However, there were task effects in the comprehension of strong pronouns in both children and adults. Findings indicate that the phenomenon is intrinsically linked to the properties of the elements in question. Analysis of the task effects highlights how different methodological manipulations can shed light on different properties of the elements studied.