Wh-filler-gap dependency formation guides reflexive antecedent search

Abstract

Prior studies on online sentence processing have shown that the parser can resolve non-local dependencies rapidly and accurately. This study investigates the interaction between the processing of two such non-local dependencies: wh-filler-gap dependencies (WhFGD) and reflexive-antecedent dependencies. We show that reflexive-antecedent dependency resolution is sensitive to the presence of a WhFGD, and argue that the filler-gap dependency established by WhFGD resolution is selected online as the antecedent of a reflexive dependency. We investigate the processing of constructions like (1), where two NPs might be possible antecedents for the reflexive, namely which cowgirl and Mary. Even though Mary is linearly closer to the reflexive, the only grammatically licit antecedent for the reflexive is the more distant wh-NP, which cowgirl.(1). Which cowgirl did Mary expect to have injured herself due to negligence?Four eye-tracking text-reading experiments were conducted on examples like (1), differing in whether the embedded clause was non-finite (1 and 3) or finite (2 and 4), and in whether the tail of the wh-dependency intervened between the reflexive and its closest overt antecedent (1 and 2) or the wh-dependency was associated with a position earlier in the sentence (3 and 4). The results of Experiments 1 and 2 indicate the parser accesses the result of WhFGD formation during reflexive antecedent search. The resolution of a wh-dependency alters the representation that reflexive antecedent search operates over, allowing the grammatical but linearly distant antecedent to be accessed rapidly. In the absence of a long-distance WhFGD (Experiments 3 and 4), wh-NPs were not found to impact reading times of the reflexive, indicating that the parser's ability to select distant wh-NPs as reflexive antecedents crucially involves syntactic structure.

Unpacking the blocking effect: Syntactic prominence and perspective-taking in antecedent retrieval in Mandarin Chinese

“…In this section, we sketch an alternative account for our reading time results based on Jäger et al (2015). As we have seen, our experimental results favor a structure-based model, since LD ziji is only sensitive to POV centers in syntactically prominent positions.…”

“…For all experiments reported in this paper, models were first fit with random intercepts and random slopes. If the model failed to converge, we simplified the model by following Bates et al (2015). A parsimonious model is to be preferred over a more complex one if model comparison suggests that the two models do not differ significantly.…”

Syntactic and cognitive issues in investigating gendered coreference

“…The difference in apparent acceptability between these two sentences indicates that the property of gender relevant for coreference is, at the very least, more complex than a formal syntactic feature. This observation by itself is not novel (e.g., Joseph 1979;Hess, Foss & Carroll 1995;Garnham, Oakhill & Reynolds 2002;Duffy & Keir 2004;Nieuwland & Van Berkum 2006;Gygax et al 2008;Pyykkönen, Hyönä & van Gompel 2010;Collins & Postal 2012;Frazier et al 2015). Thus this paper develops a formal treatment of how certain "types" of gender can match or mismatch during coreference dependency resolution and what this means for the linguistic encoding of gender identity across languages.…”

Second chances in antecedent retrieval: The processing of reflexives in two types of reconstruction environments

“…We expect that the GMME at the embedded subject in (15a), which we found in Experiment 2, would not be duplicated in (15b). Frazier et al (2015) have independently shown that reflexive antecedent search is sensitive to the structures that arise when wh -fillers are represented at their gap sites. If our predictions regarding (15) bear out, it may be the case that reflexive antecedent search and wh -filler dependencies are tightly connected.…”