29.2657, Diss: Psycholinguistics; Syntax: Jeffret J Green: ''Adjunct control: Syntax and processing''

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-2657. Mon Jun 25 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.2657, Diss: Psycholinguistics; Syntax: Jeffret J Green: ''Adjunct control: Syntax and processing''

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Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2018 11:10:09
From: Jeffrey Green [jgreen88 at terpmail.umd.edu]
Subject: Adjunct control: Syntax and processing

 
Institution: University of Maryland 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2018 

Author: Jeffrey J Green

Dissertation Title: Adjunct control: Syntax and processing 

Dissertation URL:  http://ling.umd.edu/~jgreen88/research/Green2018-dissertation-Adjunct_Control

Linguistic Field(s): Psycholinguistics
                     Syntax


Dissertation Director(s):
Alexander Williams

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation analyzes the syntax and processing of adjunct control.
Adjunct control is the referential relation between the implicit (PRO) subject
of a non-finite adjunct clause and its understood antecedent, as in the
temporal adjunct in ‘Holly1 went to bed [after PRO1 drinking milk]’, or the
rationale clause in ‘August1 sat on the couch [in order PRO1 to read library
books]’. Adjunct control is often assumed to involve a syntactic ‘Obligatory
Control’ (OC) dependency, but I show that some adjuncts also permit what is
referred to as ‘Non-Obligatory Control’ (NOC), as in the sentences ‘The food
tasted better [after PRO drinking milk]’ and ‘The book was checked out from
the library [in order PRO to read it]’, where PRO refers to some unnamed
entity. I argue that for some adjuncts, OC and NOC are not in complementary
distribution, contrary to assumptions of much prior literature, but in
agreement with Landau (2017). Contrary to implicit assumptions of Landau,
however, I also show that this OC/NOC duality does not extend to all adjuncts.
I outline assumptions that Landau’s theory would have to make in order to
accommodate the wider distribution of OC and NOC in adjuncts, but argue that
this is better accomplished within the Movement Theory of Control (Hornstein,
1999) by relaxing the assumption that all adjuncts are phases.

Even in adjuncts where both OC and NOC are possible, OC is often strongly
preferred. I argue that this is in large part due to interpretive biases in
processing. As a foundational step in examining what these processing biases
are, the second part of this dissertation uses visual-world eyetracking to
compare the timecourse of interpretation of subject-controlled PRO and overt
pronouns in temporal adjuncts. The results suggest that PRO can be interpreted
just as quickly as overt pronouns once the relevant bottom-up input is
received. These experiments also provide evidence that structural predictions
can facilitate reference resolution independent of next-mention predictions.




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