NIVEL NACIONAL

Pronouns can be a source of ambiguity. This is illustrated in the English example in (13), where the subject pronoun (he) may equally refer to the subject (John) or the object (Charles) of the preceding clause, rendering its referent unclear (example from Keating et al. 2011: 197).

(13) John saw Charles when he was walking on the beach.

In English, OSP are obligatory in all contexts. Greek and Spanish, as NS languages, have more options for expressing subjects. The aforementioned ambiguous sentence could be given in principle as (14) in Spanish (Keating et al. 2011: 197) and (15) in Greek. Both NS and OSP are permitted options.

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(14) Juan vio a Carlos cuando /él caminaba en la playa.

(15) O Janis iðe ton Kosta otan /aftos perpatuse stin paralia.

The apparently free alternation of overt and null subjects is, however, constrained by discursive factors. Traditionally, the use of NS implies reference to an antecedent which is clearly identified by the context, i.e. given. Thus, NS have been characterised as being the default in NS languages and having simple informational structure. In other words, omission of subjects is the unmarked usage of subject pronouns. The presence of OSP, on the other hand, must be justified. Typically, OSP are used in order to mark change of topic and/or to convey focus (contrast or emphasis) for purposes of clarity or ambiguity avoidance. The overt forms are thus considered to be the marked option and to have more complex informational structure (see e.g. Paredes Silva 1993; Tsimpli et al. 2004; Lozano 2009; Sorace et al. 2009; Tsimpli 2011; Kaltsa et al. 2015; Papadopoulou, Peristeri, Plemenou, Marinis & Tsimpli 2015).

The existence of the same index on the pronoun and the subject of the matrix clause indicates coreference. In example (16) in Greek from Tsimpli et al. (2004: 260), the use of the NS is coreferential with the matrix subject; a NS thus implies a non-shifted interpretation for the embedded subject. In contrast, if the OSP aftos is used, the antecedent is not the matrix subject but (in this context) the matrix object.

(16) O Janisi prosvale ton Petrok otan i/aftosk ton plisiase.

‘Janisi insulted Petrok when hei/k approached him.’

Consequently, a distinction is established between two basic types of contexts, in which distribution of NS and OSP is regulated for reference to given entities: topic continuity and topic shift (Dimitriadis 1996; Argyri & Sorace 2007; Sifaki & Sitaridou 2007; Lozano 2009, 2016; Sorace et al. 2009; Blackwell & Lubbers Quesada 2012; Shin & Cairns 2012; Mayol 2012; Andreou 2015; Bel & García-Alcaraz 2015; Kaltsa et al. 2015; Montrul & Sánchez-Walker 2015; Papadopoulou et al. 2015; Montrul 2016a; Clements & Domínguez 2016; Georgopoulos 2017, a.o.).

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Topic continuity (TC), or subject maintenance in the context of this study, is usually encoded via a NS in both Greek and Spanish. Givón (1983: 55) refers to TC as topic ‘predictability’, which is ‘the unmarked case in human discourse’ and, in terms of the psychology of discourse processing, it is easier to process: ‘the topic is obviously "more accessible" or "more recoverable" psychologically if it remains the same as in the preceding clause(s)’. Referential continuity entails topic predictability/accessibility. Topic shift (TS), i.e. subject discontinuity, involves a change of subject referent, typically realised by means of an overt form in both Greek and Spanish. Overt subjects thus function as markers of TS. Givón (1983: 55) views TS as topic ‘surprise’ (as contrasted with ‘predictability’), which ‘is the marked case in discourse’ and makes the subject/topic ‘less accessible’ or ‘harder to recover’ in processing. TS is also referred to as switch reference, signalling disjoint reference (non-coreference or referential discontinuity) of a subject with the subject of the preceding (adjacent) clause (Sifaki & Sitaridou 2007; Gijn 2016; Givón 2016).

Prada Pérez (2009) emphasises the difference between coreferentiality and topic continuation: the former determines whether a subject is coreferential with the preceding subject, thereby taking into account the referent’s syntactic function, while this is not the case for the latter. The dimensions of referential coherence considered in the present study are TC and TS. As already stated, topics are assumed to be subjects of clauses, thus TC corresponds to subject continuity (coreferentiality). Givón (1983: 55) also puts forward the concept of topic ambiguity, which concerns the dimensions of continuity and accessibility: ‘the more potential topics in the immediate discourse environment that lay claim to the coreference interpretation of a particular predicate clause, the less accessible or recoverable is the topic in psychological terms’. Givón’s view is that difficulty in topic assignment may stem from topic discontinuity (i.e. TS), which creates at least some potential for topic ambiguity, especially when there are two or more potential competitors. Paredes Silva (1993) likewise observes that discourse connectedness plays a role in ambiguity since a shift of topic weakens previous expectations.

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Whenever a previously mentioned subject reappears in discourse, reference to it can be made via a LS, an OSP or a NS. In contexts of TC, a NS is considered pragmatically appropriate (i.e. felicitous) due to economy reasons, while the other options are generally considered infelicitous although also grammatical. In contexts of TS, a LS or an OSP are regarded as the pragmatically felicitous options (e.g. Lozano 2009). NS can also be grammatical and felicitous in TS when the likelihood of ambiguity occurrence is none or minimal (Lubbers Quesada & Blackwell 2009; Blackwell & Lubbers Quesada 2012). Apparently, there exists a division of labour between NS and OSP, which contributes to felicity in subjects’ use determining a degree of coherence, necessary for unobstructed flowing of communication and processing. However, this division of labour is not always straightforward as it depends on different factors.