Abstract
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.
Highlights
During incremental sentence processing the parser routinely engages backward-looking processes in order to establish a dependency between an item in the current input and an item that was previously seen
On the other hand, we find that antecedent retrieval is better at resisting the influence of matching wh-fillers in Strong Crossover than in Weak Crossover, we can attribute the residual difference to Principle C
Participants gave high ratings to sentences when the filler and the pronoun were in a grammatically acceptable configuration. These results show that Crossover constraints impact participants' overall judgment of pronoun binding relations, but they do not speak to the question of whether such constraints apply immediately at antecedent retrieval during incremental sentence processing
Summary
During incremental sentence processing the parser routinely engages backward-looking processes in order to establish a dependency between an item in the current input and an item that was previously seen. Establishing a dependency between either the parents or which boys for the pronoun them in (1) is one such process. In its simplest form, morphologically driven antecedent retrieval should allow access to any NP that both matches and precedes a pronoun, which guarantees access to an antecedent whenever one is present. Such a procedure would have the undesirable property of allowing the parser to consider antecedent-pronoun relations that are not sanctioned by the grammar. Syntactic research has demonstrated many situations where a preceding and feature-matching NP is prohibited from serving as an antecedent for a pronoun. Most syntactic constraints reference the relative geometric position of the preceding distractor and the pronoun. The pronoun is not contained within the QP's sister phrase in the syntactic tree
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