Kush Dave, Lidz Jeffrey, Phillips Colin
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), NTNU, Institutt for språk og litteratur, N-7491 Trondheim, NO.
Haskins Laboratories, 300 George St., New Haven, CT 06511, US.
Glossa. 2017;2(1). doi: 10.5334/gjgl.280. Epub 2017 Jul 31.
We investigated the processing of pronouns in Strong and Weak Crossover constructions as a means of probing the extent to which the incremental parser can use syntactic information to guide antecedent retrieval. In Experiment 1 we show that the parser accesses a displaced wh-phrase as an antecedent for a pronoun when no grammatical constraints prohibit binding, but the parser ignores the same wh-phrase when it stands in a Strong Crossover relation to the pronoun. These results are consistent with two possibilities. First, the parser could apply Principle C at antecedent retrieval to exclude the wh-phrase on the basis of the c-command relation between its gap and the pronoun. Alternatively, retrieval might ignore any phrases that do not occupy an Argument position. Experiment 2 distinguished between these two possibilities by testing antecedent retrieval under Weak Crossover. In Weak Crossover binding of the pronoun is ruled out by the argument condition, but not Principle C. The results of Experiment 2 indicate that antecedent retrieval accesses matching wh-phrases in Weak Crossover configurations. On the basis of these findings we conclude that the parser can make rapid use of Principle C and c-command information to constrain retrieval. We discuss how our results support a view of antecedent retrieval that integrates inferences made over unseen syntactic structure into constraints on backward-looking processes like memory retrieval.
我们研究了强弱跨越结构中代词的处理情况，以此来探究增量式句法分析器在多大程度上能够利用句法信息来引导先行词检索。在实验1中，我们发现，当没有语法限制禁止约束时，句法分析器会将移位的wh短语作为代词的先行词，但当该wh短语与代词处于强跨越关系时，句法分析器会忽略它。这些结果符合两种可能性。第一，句法分析器可能在先行词检索时应用原则C，根据其语迹与代词之间的成分统领关系排除wh短语。或者，检索可能会忽略任何不占据论元位置的短语。实验2通过测试弱跨越情况下的先行词检索来区分这两种可能性。在弱跨越中，代词的约束被论元条件排除，但不被原则C排除。实验2的结果表明，先行词检索会在弱跨越结构中访问匹配的wh短语。基于这些发现，我们得出结论，句法分析器能够迅速利用原则C和成分统领信息来限制检索。我们讨论了我们的结果如何支持一种先行词检索观点，该观点将对不可见句法结构的推理整合到对诸如记忆检索等向后看过程的约束中。
