Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax
- The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I General Issues in Acceptability Experiments
- Part II Experimental Studies of Specific Phenomena
- 8 Resumptive Pronouns in English
- 9 Island Effects
- 10 The That-Trace Effect
- 11 Anaphora: Experimental Methods for Investigating Coreference
- 12 Constituent Order and Acceptability
- 13 Acceptability Judgments at the Syntax–Semantics Interface
- Part III Experimental Studies of Specific Populations and Language Families
- Part IV Experimental Syntax beyond Acceptability
- Index
- References
8 - Resumptive Pronouns in English
from Part II - Experimental Studies of Specific Phenomena
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2021
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax
- The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I General Issues in Acceptability Experiments
- Part II Experimental Studies of Specific Phenomena
- 8 Resumptive Pronouns in English
- 9 Island Effects
- 10 The That-Trace Effect
- 11 Anaphora: Experimental Methods for Investigating Coreference
- 12 Constituent Order and Acceptability
- 13 Acceptability Judgments at the Syntax–Semantics Interface
- Part III Experimental Studies of Specific Populations and Language Families
- Part IV Experimental Syntax beyond Acceptability
- Index
- References
Summary
In many introspective and corpus studies, inserting a resumptive pronoun in place of a gap in island-violating wh-dependency structures in English is said to amnesty, ameliorate, or repair the island violation, improving the acceptability of otherwise unacceptable structures. Most experimental studies on the acceptability of such resumptive structures, however, report that native speakers of English do not judge island-violating dependency structures with resumptive pronouns to be more acceptable than the ones with gaps. But studies testing the comprehensibility and processing of resumption report that resumptive pronouns increase the comprehensibility of island-violating structures and facilitate processing of long dependencies. These results taken together suggest that although resumptive pronouns in islands do not have an ameliorating effect on grammaticality, they may confer a processing benefit. A question, however, remains as to whether the reported enhanced comprehensibility and ease in processing actually increase the accuracy in interpreting the resumptive pronouns.
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- The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax , pp. 211 - 226Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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