"D-linked" wh-phrases such as which car are known to increase the acceptability of sentences with island violations. One influential account this attributes effect working memory: D-linked filler is easier retrieve at site gap and leads amelioration in acceptability. Such an predicts that should occur general non-trivial wh-dependencies, not just environments. An experiment presented here test prediction. Wh-questions both bare non-island embedded clauses participants, who rate their on a...

To a large extent, island phenomena are cross-linguistically invariable, but English and Korean present some striking differences in this domain. has wh-movement does not, while both languages show sensitivity to wh-islands, only effects for adjunct clauses. Given complex set of differences, one might expect Korean/English bilinguals, especially heritage speakers (i.e., early bilinguals whose L2 became their dominant language during childhood) be different from native speakers, since have...

Abstract. Both English and Spanish exhibit an inversion effect in wh ‐questions: a verbal element must appear to the left of subject. Analyses differ, however, as whether this is due similar syntactic mechanisms two languages or not. The phenomenon judgment satiation, which certain unacceptable sentence types improve upon repeated exposure, used here provide new evidence addressing issue. It shown that ‐questions are susceptible but their counterparts not, suggests different responsible for...

Abstract The standard explanation for Ν Ρ movement in the passive construction has been that N P must move into nominative position because no accusative case is available. This paper examines implications this view of some double-object constructions Mandarin Chinese and English are ungrammatical as active clauses but improve significantly passives. These facts unexpected under passives, I suggest they can be explained if we assume second object not licensed versions able to check version,...

Linguistic research focuses primarily on the thousands of naturally occurring languages, but there are also languages that have been consciously created by individuals. There four main types these constructed languages. First, so-called philosophical were in seventeenth century as a way to better capture reality world. Second, many international auxiliary late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries solve practical problems communication. Third, recent decades for purposes fiction (e.g.,...

Subjunctive clauses in Spanish are traditionally claimed to obey Concordantia Temporum (CT), an agreement tense between the matrix and subjunctive clauses. Treating this phenomenon literally as is problematic, so analysis which CT falls out from general principles of interpretation, Laca (2010a), very attractive. Nevertheless, seems make some prima facie incorrect predictions. Here we test these predictions by means a large-scale, formal sentence acceptability experiment three countries. We...

There is evidence to suggest that finiteness marking on verbs and subject-auxiliary inversion are related phenomena in English. In contrast, Spanish there consistent with the apparently similar phenomenon of subject-verb being unrelated. both cases, most adduced comes from adult acceptability judgments other psycholinguistic work. present article, we child English supports interrelatedness English, but not Spanish. Specifically, show speakers who optional infinitive stage have variable...