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In:Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 28, Lisbon
Edited by Ernestina Carrilho, Alexandra Fiéis, Maria Lobo and Sandra Pereira
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10] 2016
► pp. 83–102

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Why are distributive readings dispreferred?

 | LLF, CNRS-Université Paris Diderot
 | Goethe Universität Frankfurt
 | LLF, CNRS-Université Paris Diderot
Published online: 8 December 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.10.05dob
The paper reports the results of four experiments that were meant to investigate the availability of distributive readings in three types of French sentences, which involved singular indefinite DPs in the object position but differed with respect to the syntax of the subject DP (def-plDP, groupDP, most of DP). Our results show a clear contrast between def-plDP and groupDP vs. most of DP: the collective reading is preferred with the former, and the distributive reading is preferred with the latter. We will propose complexity-based explanations, which attribute dispreferred readings to an increase in processing load.
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2020. Elided Clausal Conjunction Is Not the Only Source of Closest‐Conjunct Agreement: A Picture‐Matching Study. Syntax 23:1 ► pp. 78 ff. DOI logo
Pozniak, Céline, Barbara Hemforth, Yair Haendler, Andrea Santi & Nino Grillo
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