Cataphors precede their antecedents, so they cannot be fully interpreted until those antecedents are encountered. Some researchers propose that cataphors trigger an active search during incremental processing in which the parser predictively posits potential antecedents in upcoming syntactic positions (Kazanina et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 56[3], 384–409, 2007). One characteristic of active search is that it is persistent: If a prediction is disconfirmed in an earlier position, the parser should iteratively search later positions until the predicted element is found. Previous research has assumed, but not established, that antecedent search is persistent. In four experiments in English and Norwegian, we test this hypothesis. Two sentence completion experiments show a strong off-line preference for coreference between a fronted cataphor and the first available argument position (the main subject). When the main subject cannot be the antecedent, participants posit the antecedent in the next closest position: object position. Two self-paced reading studies demonstrate that comprehenders actively expect the antecedent of a fronted cataphor to appear in the main clause subject position, and then successively in object position if the subject does not match the cataphor in gender. Our results therefore support the claim that antecedent search is active and persistent.

隐喻先于它们的先行词，因此在遇到这些先行词之前不能完全解释它们。一些研究人员提出，隐喻在增量处理期间触发主动搜索，其中解析器预测性地在即将到来的句法位置中设置潜在的先行词（Kazanina 等人，Journal of Memory and Language，56[3], 384–409, 2007)。主动搜索的一个特点是它是持久的：如果预测在较早的位置上被否定，解析器应该迭代地搜索后面的位置，直到找到预测的元素。先前的研究假设但尚未确定先行搜索是持久的。在英语和挪威语的四个实验中，我们检验了这个假设。两个句子完成实验表明，在一个前置隐喻和第一个可用的论点位置（主要主题）之间对共指有强烈的离线偏好。当主体不能是先行词时，参与者将先行词置于下一个最接近的位置：宾语位置。两项自定进度的阅读研究表明，理解者积极期待前置隐喻的先行词出现在主句主语位置，如果主语与隐喻的性别不匹配，则依次处于宾语位置。因此，我们的结果支持先行搜索是主动和持久的这一说法。