Abstract prediction of morphosyntactic features: Evidence from processing cataphors in Dutch

Abstract

When comprehenders predict a specific lexical noun in a highly constraining context, they also activate the grammatical features, such as gender, of that noun. Evidence for such lexically mediated prediction comes from ERP studies that show that comprehenders are surprised by adjectives and determiners that mismatch the features of a highly predictable noun. In this study, we investigated whether comprehenders can (i) predict an abstract noun phrase in an upcoming argument position (without pre-activating a specific lexical item) and (ii) assign morphosyntactic features to the head noun of that phrase. To do so we used the processing of Dutch cataphors as a test case. We tested whether seeing a cataphor in a preposed clause triggered a prediction of a feature-matching antecedent NP in main subject position. If comprehenders predicted a feature-matching subject, we reasoned that they should also expect an agreeing main verb, which comes before the subject because Dutch is a V2 language. A single-word prediction experiment showed that comprehenders expect a main verb matching the number of the cataphor. In a follow-up self-paced reading experiment, we found a number-mismatch effect if the V2 main verb did not agree with the cataphor. We take the results as evidence that comprehenders predicted a matching antecedent in subject position. We argue that the results are better explained as involving prediction of an abstract noun phrase marked for morphological features, rather than a specific lexical item.