Jenny Doetjes

RIGHTWARD FLOATING QUANTIFIERS FLOAT TO THE LEFT

In this paper I argue that rightward and leftward Q-float, contrary to what has been assumed in the literature, must be considered äs one single phenomenon. Leftward Q-float, or L-tous, is defined by Kayne (1984) äs a binding relation between a floating quantifier in an adverbial position and a trace of a NP which functions äs a variable with respect to the floating quantifier. Adoption of the VP internal subject hypothesis makes it possible to extend this analysis to the rightward Q-float cases, which I will analyze äs in (2):

The Semantics of Event-Related Readings: A Case for Pair-Quantification

In this paper we will be concerned primarily with ambiguities of the type exhibited in (1), where OR stands for Object-related Reading and ER for Event-related Reading. These readings have been extensively discussed and thoroughly analyzed in Krifka (1990).

Active search for antecedents in cataphoric pronoun resolution

Cataphoric dependencies where a pronoun precedes its antecedent appear to call on different mechanisms in language comprehension from forward dependencies where the antecedent precedes the pronoun. Previous research has shown that the resolution of cataphoric dependencies involves predictive processes such as the active search mechanism, which hypothesizes the automatic search for an antecedent immediately after encountering a cataphoric pronoun. The current study employs gender mismatch to investigate whether the active search for an antecedent of a cataphoric pronoun is restricted only to grammatically licit positions. We present results from an event-related potential experiment on the reading comprehension of cataphoric dependencies in Dutch. Results show that gender mismatch gives rise to an anterior negativity at grammatically licit antecedent positions only. We hypothesize that this negativity reflects the prediction failure for an antecedent after encountering a pronoun, rather than a gender mismatch. We discuss the timing, topography and functionality of this negativity with respect to previous studies and how this relates to the ERPs elicited in the processing of structural constraints on pronoun resolution.

Backward Dependencies and in-Situ wh-Questions as Test Cases on How to Approach Experimental Linguistics Research That Pursues Theoretical Linguistics Questions

The empirical study of language is a young field in contemporary linguistics. This being the case, and following a natural development process, the field is currently at a stage where different research methods and experimental approaches are being put into question in terms of their validity. Without pretending to provide an answer with respect to the best way to conduct linguistics related experimental research, in this article we aim at examining the process that researchers follow in the design and implementation of experimental linguistics research with a goal to validate specific theoretical linguistic analyses. First, we discuss the general challenges that experimental work faces in finding a compromise between addressing theoretically relevant questions and being able to implement these questions in a specific controlled experimental paradigm. We discuss the Granularity Mismatch Problem (Poeppel and Embick, 2005) which addresses the challenges that research that is trying to bridge the representations and computations of language and their psycholinguistic/neurolinguistic evidence faces, and the basic assumptions that interdisciplinary research needs to consider due to the different conceptual granularity of the objects under study. To illustrate the practical implications of the points addressed, we compare two approaches to perform linguistic experimental research by reviewing a number of our own studies strongly grounded on theoretically informed questions. First, we show how linguistic phenomena similar at a conceptual level can be tested within the same language using measurement of event-related potentials (ERP) by discussing results from two ERP experiments on the processing of long-distance backward dependencies that involve coreference and negative polarity items respectively in Dutch. Second, we examine how the same linguistic phenomenon can be tested in different languages using reading time measures by discussing the outcome of four self-paced reading experiments on the processing of in-situ wh-questions in Mandarin Chinese and French. Finally, we review the implications that our findings have for the specific theoretical linguistics questions that we originally aimed to address. We conclude with an overview of the general insights that can be gained from the role of structural hierarchy and grammatical constraints in processing and the existing limitations on the generalization of results.

A note on the scope of adverbs in Malagasy

Inspired by Kayne’s (1994) Antisymmetry hypothesis and Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA), there have been over the last decade numerous analyses employing extensive Remnant Movement1 (RM). While many of these are controversial, the RM analysis of Malagasy found in Pearson (2001) and Rackowski & Travis (2000) (R&T) in particular solves several outstanding puzzles of Malagasy syntax, although it does run into a possible problem with regard to the proper placement of arguments and adverbials, discussed in Thiersch (2004). Nevertheless, this approach to Malagasy seems promising, and confronted with apparent counterexamples to the analysis, one would like to see if they bear up under scrutiny. A welcome result would be that under a proper analysis, the approach actually predicts the judgments in question. This paper proceeds as follows. We give a brief summary of Malagasy syntax and the Remnant Movement approach, and give by way of motivation three sample problems which this analysis explains. We then discuss an alleged counterexample, which turns out to be a problem for languages other than Malagasy as well, and show that under the correct analysis it is in fact consistent with R&T’s analysis.