Processing Controlled PROs in Spanish

Autor/inn/en	Betancort, Moises; Carreiras, Manuel; Acuna-Farina, Carlos
Titel	Processing Controlled PROs in Spanish
Quelle	In: Cognition, 100 (2006) 2, S.217-282 (66 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0010-0277
DOI	10.1016/j.cognition.2005.04.001
Schlagwörter	Language Processing; Spanish; Eye Movements; Grammar; Verbs; Psycholinguistics; Foreign Countries; Spain + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Sprachverarbeitung; Spanisch; Augenbewegung; Grammatik; Psycholinguistik; Ausland; Spanien
Abstract	Two experiments were carried out to investigate the processing of the empty category PRO and the time-course of this in Spanish. Eye movements were recorded while participants read sentences in which a matrix clause was followed by a subordinate infinitival clause, so that the subject or the object of the main clause could act as controller of PRO, and therefore as implicit grammatical subject of the infinitive. In Experiment 1, verb control information was manipulated: The matrix clause contained either subject-control verbs like "prometer" ("promise") or object-control verbs like "forzar" ("force"). In Experiment 2, the preposition that headed adverbial subordinate clauses was manipulated: Two different kinds of infinitival adverbial clauses were used, expressing purpose (preposition para) and reason (preposition por) and in which control information is primarily "induced" by the prepositions ("para" tends to trigger subject-control; "por" object-control). Experiment 1 showed that readers make immediate use of verb control information to recover the antecedent of the empty category PRO in Spanish obligatory control constructions. The data obtained in Experiment 2 suggest that during the processing of the empty category PRO in purpose vs. reason adverbial subordinate infinitival clauses the control information "induced" by the prepositions "por" vs. "para" is not initially used as a constraint to guide the selection of the nominal antecedent of PRO. In addition, both experiments showed that PRO antecedent selection is a very fast process and that, together with verb control information, recency played an important role. The results are discussed in terms of current psycholinguistic hypotheses about empty categories and in relation to formal linguistic hypotheses about PRO control. We argue that obligatory control ties (which are co-referential ties) are processed fast because they are launched from the same lexical platform that launches all fast syntactic connections (complements, as opposed to modifiers). In short, that such lexically-specified co-referential ties are regulated by linguistic form. (Author).
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Update	2017/4/10