QUANTIFIER POLARITY AND REFERENTIAL FOCUS DURING READING

We report the results of two eye-tracking experiments that examine how readers process sentences containing anaphoric pronouns when the refe rent is provided by a preceding quantified statement. Previous studies (Moxey & Sanford, 1987; Sanford, Moxey, & Paterson, 1996) have shown that positive and negative quantifiers (e.g., a few and few, respectiv ely) cause subjects to focus on different aspects of the described sit uation and have direct consequences for the interpretation of subseque nt anaphoric pronouns. In the present studies, we consider whether pos itive and negative quantifiers make different sets available as the re ferents of subsequent anaphora or if readers must infer the nature of these sets on encountering the anaphor. The results suggest that posit ives do make sets available as referents, whereas in the case of negat ives, readers must infer the referent set. The findings are consistent with linguistic arguments concerning the differences between positive and negative quantifiers and add to our understanding of complex plur al anaphora. (C) 1998 Academic Press.