Acceptability Judgements of Binding and Coreference

Abstract

Abstract Constraints on binding/coreference are a key component of syntactic theory. However, collecting reliable and interpretable acceptability judgments of binding and coreference in an experimental setting requires a distinct methodology from standard acceptability judgments. This is because the researcher needs to ensure that participants are considering the intended coreference pattern when assessing acceptability. This chapter provides guidance for designing experiments to be used with non-linguistically-trained adult native speaker participants to assess the acceptability of different binding/coreference configurations. The chapter covers issues such as how to ensure participants are considering the intended interpretation, how participants provide their responses (binary choices, multi-point scales, etc.), and how other tasks can complement acceptability-based methods.