Abstract

A topic generative grammar has addressed is that of the leftness condition. This condition appears to show that people tend not to relate pronouns and variables in the same sentence whenever the pronoun is to the left of the variable. This approach is basically syntactic. The present paper tries to move to a more semantic framework: that of the theory of mental models. This theory considers the meanings of the words in sentences to be essential. Besides, it proposes that people process sentences linking them to iconic models or possibilities. Thus, this paper argues that the theory of mental models can explain the semantic reasons for the difficulties to relate a pronoun and a variable when the pronoun appears first in the sentence.