Psychological insubstantiality of syntactic traces

Affiliation:
National Research University «Higher School of Economics»
Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology, Russian Academy of Sciences
Address: Moscow, 101000, Russia

Anastasia S. Ulicheva

Affiliation: The University of Hong Kong
Address: Hong Kong, China

Journal name

Voprosy Jazykoznanija

Edition

Issue 1

Pages

102-110

Abstract

The present study employed the visual-world eyetracking paradigm to discriminate between the syntactic and context-oriented strategies concerning the processing of wh-questions in 36 native speakers of Russian. According to the syntactic-oriented strategy, while processing the questions like Kto devochku potseloval v shkole? (who-NOM girl-ACC kissed at school?), activation of the object referent devochka at the verb would signal a post-verbal trace of wh-movement. Alternatively, if the processing is context-dependent, the overt object devochka preceding the verb precludes the possibility that it could be the referent of the whfiller, and the reactivation of the subject NP referent should follow instead. Indeed, the results show that the proportion of fixations on the object NP referent at the verb was less than on the subject NP referent. Therefore identification of the referent associated with the wh-filler is not syntactically constrained, but instead is contextually fed: as soon as the context provides enough cues to exclude referents that cannot be linked to the wh-filler, the remaining referent gets associated with it.

Keywords

syntactic trace, wh-questions, eye-tracking

Received

01.02.2015

Publication date

01.02.2015

Number of characters

1040

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GOST	Laurinavichyute A., Dragoy O., Ivanova M., Kuptsova S., Ulicheva A. Psychological insubstantiality of syntactic traces // Voprosy Jazykoznanija – 2015. – Issue 1 C. 102-110 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/vopjaz/s0373658x0011301-0-1-en (circulation date: 10.12.2024).
MLA	Laurinavichyute, Anna К, Dragoy, Olga V, Ivanova, Maria V, Kuptsova, Svetlana V, Ulicheva, Anastasia S "Psychological insubstantiality of syntactic traces." Voprosy Jazykoznanija 1 (2015):102-110.
APA	Laurinavichyute A., Dragoy O., Ivanova M., Kuptsova S., Ulicheva A. (2015). Psychological insubstantiality of syntactic traces. Voprosy Jazykoznanija (1), pp.102-110

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