Multiple sluicing and islands

A cross-linguistic experimental investigation of the clausemate condition

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20344407
AutoresÁlvaro Cortés Rodríguez (0000-0001-9727-5315, University of Tübingen , Tübingen , Germany, autor de correspondencia)
Año2022
Volumen39
Número3
Páginas425-455
Fecha de publicación2022-09-27
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Linguistic Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0167-6318 • E-ISSN: 1613-3676
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/tlr-2022-2093
OpenAlexW4285727954
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas47

This paper experimentally investigates the two generalizations for multiple sluicing (MS) recently presented by Klaus Abels and Veneeta Dayal: first, that wh-remnants must have clausemate correlates in the antecedent utterance and, second, that wh-remnants in MS can have correlates in the antecedent clause that are contained in a strong syntactic island. The fact that MS displays both of these properties is puzzling since island insensitivity under sluicing favors a non-sententialist approach to MS, while the clausemate requirement on MS is most straightforwardly explained by postulating a silent structure at the ellipsis site. Even though the clausemate condition has been reported in several languages, no experimental work has been conducted so far to examine its precise effects on the acceptability of MS constructions. In this paper, I will present the results of a series of experiments in German, English, and Spanish (employing both acceptability judgment tasks and a self-paced reading task), where the factors of clausemateness and islandhood have been examined systematically. The results provide solid cross-linguistic support for Abels and Dayal’s generalizations by showing that multiple sluices originating from islands and non-islands are equally acceptable and do not exhibit online processing differences. Furthermore, the acceptability judgment tasks show a significant degradation in acceptability when the correlates in the antecedent do not stem from the same finite clause, thus violating the clausemate condition. I will interpret these results as supporting a particular strand of sententialist research known as the island evasion approach and, in particular, defend that MS is derived from a non-isomorphic short source sluice

Agreement · German · Linguistics · Syntax · Utterance · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation