THE PROCESSING OF EMPTY SUBJECTS IN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE

Abstract

The present chapter is concerned with the mechanism by which the parser identifies the correct antecedent of a gap. In particular, we will discuss the particular construction involving the case of a subject gap in control structures (PRO, within the generative literature). We take a crosslinguistic perspective, in keeping with the themes of this book, and compare the results of experiments from both English and Japanese. In this chapter, we pursue this idea and propose a theta-checking that can explain the universality of antecedent identification in control structures, as well as differences between English and Japanese concerning the processing of these empty subjects. Essentially, this strategy claims that information is used by the parser as soon as it becomes available. This follows from universal characteristics of the parser, with the acknowledgement that the time course of information availability, as well as the salience of particular cues, differs from language to language. In sections 2 and 3 we will review the experimental literature that has been put forward for these constructions in English and Japanese,