Gender Effects on Non-Gendered Pronouns in Hindi and Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

We investigated strategies to avoid referential ambiguity in pronoun use. The non-linguistic competition account suggests that speakers avoid pronouns when referential candidates share the same gender, as increased similarity between them triggers a need for more specific referential information. We tested this hypothesis in Hindi and Mandarin Chinese, both of which use non-gendered pronouns. In Hindi, gender similarity between referential candidates reduced pronoun usage, supporting the account. In spoken Mandarin, where null pronouns are common, the use of overt pronouns was unaffected by either gender-based or situation-based similarity (i.e., whether more than one entity in the visual display could serve as a potential referent), while situation-based competition reduced the use of null pronouns. In written Mandarin, overt pronouns were preferred over null pronouns, and both gender- and situation-based competition influenced their use, although the gender effect was marginal. Null pronouns were unaffected by gender-based competition regardless of modality. These findings suggest that gender-based competition depends on pronoun features (e.g., null vs. overt) and the communication mode that influences pronoun preferences and susceptibility to similarity-based competition.