---
title: "The effect of gender (mis)match on the interpretation of English"
description: "A reflexive inside an elided verb phrase can be read in two ways. 98 references. Among them: 1."
authors: ["Evelyn Gandón-Chapela", "Francisco Gallardo-del-Puerto"]
year: 2025
venue: "Glossa: a journal of general linguistics"
source: "https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/id/11493/"
doi: "10.16995/glossa.11493"
licence: "CC BY 4.0"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/chapela-2025-effect-gender-mis-match-interpretation/"
---
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# The effect of gender (mis)match on the interpretation of English reflexive pronouns in cases of VP-ellipsis by native and non-native speakers of English

**Authors:** Evelyn Gandón-Chapela and Francisco Gallardo-del-Puerto · **Year:** 2025 · **Venue:** [Glossa: a journal of general linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/glossa-a-journal-of-general-linguistics/) ([Glossa a journal of general linguistics 2025](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/glossa-a-journal-of-general-linguistics/2025/)) · **Publisher:** [Ubiquity Press](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/ubiquity-press/) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.11493) · [PDF](https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/11493/galley/41351/download) · [DOI 10.16995/glossa.11493](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.11493) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4408408040)

**Citations:** 1 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
A reflexive inside an elided verb phrase can be read in two ways. In "Sienna criticised herself and Melanie did too", the sloppy reading is that Melanie criticised Melanie, and the strict reading is that Melanie criticised Sienna. The authors ask two questions. First, does a gender clash between the two subjects (Sienna … George), and the order of the genders, change which reading people pick? Second, do L1 Spanish learners of English pattern like native speakers?

They ran a two-alternative forced-choice task using subject-choice VPE items. They compared native English speakers with learners at B1, B2 and C1 levels.

Native speakers clearly preferred sloppy readings, and they chose them less often when the genders did not match. The authors read this as evidence for a non-structural account of ellipsis resolution. Learners were less sloppy overall and showed no mismatch effect. On matched items, intermediate learners differed significantly from natives, but advanced learners did not. All groups were more sloppy when a feminine antecedent came before a masculine subject. The study feeds the structure and identity debates in ellipsis theory.

## Key points
- The design crosses gender match vs. mismatch (GM/GMM) with mismatch direction (masculine-feminine MF vs. feminine-masculine FM). Four groups took part: native speakers (NS) and L1 Spanish learners at B1, B2 and C1, with proficiency measured by the Oxford Placement Test (OPT).
- All test items are subject-choice Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis. The paper notes that mismatches are reportedly tolerated more in auxiliary-choice contexts, so any mismatch effect here is expected to be small.
- Native speakers showed a sloppy preference plus sensitivity to gender mismatch. Learners showed no mismatch effect, and a proficiency effect appeared only for matched sentences.
- Every group preferred sloppy readings more strongly in FM orderings than in MF orderings.
- Data were collected in 2022/2023 at Universidad de Cantabria with bilingual consent. The dataset is public on OSF (osf.io/wsj3x).

## Interesting ideas
- An agreement-feature clash on the reflexive (herself vs. a male new subject) serves as a probe for whether a gap copies syntax or meaning. Speakers still accept sloppy readings despite the clash, which suggests the elided material is meaning-based.
- Sloppy and strict readings are both available, so the result is best stored as a ranked pair rather than one answer. Sloppy is the default, and a gender mismatch acts as a soft cue that shifts weight toward strict.
- The paper separates auxiliary-choice ellipsis (same subject, new polarity or tense) from subject-choice ellipsis (new subject, same property), and these differ in how much mismatch they tolerate.
- Matched and mismatched minimal pairs, counterbalanced for gender order, isolate one factor and expose order biases such as the FM effect.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (frames): resolve VPE by copying the antecedent frame and rebinding the reflexive role to the new subject, without requiring the copied pronoun's gender to agree.
- **I2** (world): keep both candidate states for "X did too" and lower the sloppy score when the reflexive's gender conflicts with the new subject, so later questions can see the alternative.
- **I3** (frames): tag each post-auxiliary ellipsis with its choice type, so it is clear whether the frame inherits the subject or replaces it.
- **I4** (learn): build ellipsis evaluation sets as minimal pairs with both orders, used as controls to check that the resolver is not just following name order or gender.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

Also on the byline: [Universidad de Cantabria](https://ror.org/046ffzj20).

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🧭 Topics (1): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 2,263 works

## Cite

Cite as: Evelyn Gandón-Chapela and Francisco Gallardo-del-Puerto. 2025. The effect of gender (mis)match on the interpretation of English reflexive pronouns in cases of VP-ellipsis by native and non-native speakers of English. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@article{gandonchapela2025effect,
  title = {{The effect of gender (mis)match on the interpretation of English reflexive pronouns in cases of VP-ellipsis by native and non-native speakers of English}},
  author = {Evelyn Gandón-Chapela and Francisco Gallardo-del-Puerto},
  journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.16995/glossa.11493},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.11493}
}
```

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