Abstract
Noh, Eun-Ju. 2010. On a Pragmatic Account of Intervention Effects: A Reply to Moon et al. (2009). Korean Journal of Linguistics, 35-1, 71-87. In syntactic theories, sentences with an NP-man (NP-only) and a wh-phrase are analysed to be ungrammatical when the NP-man precedes the wh-phrase because it intervenes between the wh-phrase and its licensing Q-operator at LF. If the wh-phrase is scrambled over the intervener, it can be connected to the Q-operator and the intervention effect is cancelled. However, the grammaticality judgments about the intervention effect vary from ‘ungrammatical’ to ‘merely marginal.’ Moon et al. (2009) explore the difference between intervention effect sentences and its scrambled counterparts by conducting an EEG (electroencephalograph) experiment. On the basis of the result of the experiment, they claim that the intervention effect is due to a pragmatic factor such as presupposition failure. This paper reviews their pragmatic account and argues that the ungrammaticality of intervention effect sentences has nothing to do with presupposition failure, and thus, their pragmatic account does not deal with the intervention effect properly. Some of other pragmatic accounts are also compared and discussed. (Inha University)
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