In:Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2018: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 32, Utrecht
Edited by Frank Drijkoningen, Sergio Baauw and Luisa Meroni
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 357] 2021
► pp. 11–24
Chapter 1Processing clitic pronouns outside coargumenthood
Published online: 17 December 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.357.01bru
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.357.01bru
Abstract
Online adult processing of English pronouns is subject to early structural constraints. However, if a sentence fails to provide a licit antecedent for a pronoun, ungrammatical antecedents may be fleetingly considered, causing processing disruption. This paper investigates whether illicit antecedents exert any interference in the processing of clitic pronouns. Given an established asymmetry between simple and Exceptional Case Marking predicates in the acquisition of binding Principle B (Baauw & Cuetos 2003), this study asks whether the notion of coargumenthood plays a role during the online processing of clitic pronouns by Italian-speaking adults. I report experimental evidence from a self-paced reading study suggesting that the time course of pronoun resolution is affected by coargumenthood. In Exceptional Case Marking predicates, comprehenders appear to temporarily consider a feature-matching local antecedent as soon as the clitic trace is processed in its thematic position.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Clitics and Principle B: Acquisition evidence and linguistic theory
- 3.Forward anaphora and locality effects in adult processing
- 4.Research questions and hypotheses
- 5.The experiment
- 5.1Materials
- 5.2Subjects and procedure
- 6.Results
- 7.Discussion
- 8.Conclusions
Note References
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