Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T01:25:40.663Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Acceptability and processing of long-distance dependencies in Danish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2008

Mads Poulsen
Mads Poulsen*
Affiliation:
Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 120, DK-2300 Copenhagen, Denmarkm.poulsen@hum.ku.dk
Get access

Abstract

Long-distance dependencies have been the object of much theoretical interest in the Scandinavian languages and in general, but the empirical foundation for theorizing has been limited. The present paper investigates extraction from complement and adverbial clauses in Danish using acceptability judgment and reading-time measures. Extraction from adverbial clauses was found to be rated near the bottom of the scale and to be associated with a processing cost. This was also true of extraction in adverbial clauses in semantically cohesive sentences, which Jensen (2001a, b) has suggested is acceptable. It is concluded that under the conditions investigated extraction from adverbial clauses in Danish is associated with a processing cost and very low acceptability ratings, despite semantic cohesion.

Keywords

acceptabilityDanishextractiongrammaticalityisland constraintsjudgmentlanguage processinglong-distance dependencies
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , June 2008 , pp. 73 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allwood, Jens. 1982. The complex NP constraint in Swedish. In Engdahl, & Ejerhed, (eds.), 15–32.Google Scholar
Anderson, Lars-Gunnar. 1982. What is Swedish an exception to? Extractions and island constraints. In Engdahl, & Ejerhed (eds.), 33–45.Google Scholar
Bard, Ellen G., Robertson, Dan & Sorace, Antonella. 1996. Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language 72, 32–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, Kathryn & Levelt, Wilhelm. 1994. Language production. Grammatical encoding. In Gernsbacher, Morton A. (ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics, 945–984. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1973. Conditions on transformations. In Anderson, Stephen R. & Kiparsky, Paul (eds.), A Festschrift for Morris Halle, 232–286. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jonathan, MacWhinney, Brian, Flatt, Matthew & Provost, Jefferson. 1993. PsyScope: A new graphic interactive environment for designing psychological experiments. Behavioral Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 25, 257–271.Google Scholar
Cowart, Wayne. 1997. Experimental syntax: Applying objective methods to sentence judgments. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Creider, Chet A. 1987. Structural and pragmatic factors influencing the acceptability of sentences with extended dependencies in Norwegian. University of Trondheim Working Papers in Linguistics 4, 2–141.Google Scholar
Dąbrowska, Ewa. 1997. The LAD goes to school. Linguistics 35, 735–766.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deane, Paul. 1991. Limits to attention: A cognitive theory of island constraint phenomena. Cognitive Linguistics 2, 1–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devriendt, Betty, Goossens, Louis & Auwera, Johan Van Der (eds.). 1995. Complex structures: A functionalist perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Engdahl, Elisabet. 1982. Restrictions on unbounded dependencies in Swedish. In Engdahl, & Ejerhed, (eds.), 151–174.Google Scholar
Engdahl, Elisabet. 1997. Relative clause extraction in context. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 60, 51–79.Google Scholar
Engdahl, Elisabet & Ejerhed, Eva (eds.). 1982. Readings on unbounded dependencies in Scandinavian languages. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 1973. On the nature of island constraints. Ph.D dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 1982. Extractability in Danish and the pragmatic principle of dominance. In Engdahl, & Ejerhed, (eds.), 175–191.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi & Lappin, Shalom. 1979. Dominance and the functional explanation of island constraints. Theoretical Linguistics 6, 43–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Featherston, Sam. 2004. Bridge verbs and V2 verbs – the same thing in spades. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 23, 181–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hestvik, Arild, Maxfield, Nathan, Schwartz, Richard G. & Shafer, Valerie. 2007. Brain responses to filled gaps. Brain and Language 100, 301–316.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jakobsen, Lisbeth Falster. 1995. Sentence intertwining in Danish, seen from a Functional Grammar perspective. In Devriendt, et al. (eds.), 61–92.Google Scholar
Jensen, Anne. 1998. Knudekonstruktioner – en syntaktisk, semantisk og pragmatisk analyse af sætningsknuder i dansk. MA thesis, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Jensen, Anne. 2001a. Sentence intertwining in Danish. In Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth & Harder, Peter (eds.), Ikonicitet og struktur, 23–39. Preprint from Netværk for Funktionel Lingvistik, Department of English, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Jensen, Anne. 2001b. Sætningsknuder – og Role and Reference Grammar. In Widell, Peter & Kunøe, Mette (eds.), 8. Mφde i Udforskningen af Dansk Sprog, 156–165. Aarhus Universitet, 12–13 October 2000.Google Scholar
Just, Marcel A., Carpenter, Patricia A. & Woolley, Jacqueline D.. 1982. Paradigms and processes in reading comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 11, 228–238.Google Scholar
Kluender, Robert. 1998. On the distinction between strong and weak islands: A processing perspective. In Culicover, Peter W. & McNally, Louise (eds.), The limits of syntax, 241–279. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kluender, Robert & Kutas, Marta. 1993. Subjacency as a processing phenomena. Language and Cognitive Processes 8, 573–633.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuno, Susumu. 1987. Functional Syntax. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1975. Empirical foundations of linguistic theory. In Austerlitz, Robert (ed.), The scope of American linguistics, 77–133. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press.Google Scholar
McKinnon, Richard & Osterhout, Lee. 1996. Constraints on movement phenomena in sentence processing: evidence from event-related brain potentials. Language and Cognitive Processes 11, 495–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Colin. 2006. The real-time status of island phenomena. Language 82, 795–823.Google Scholar
Phillips, Colin & Wagers, Matthew. 2007. Relating structure and time in linguistics and psycholinguistics. In Gaskell, Gareth (ed.), Oxford handbook of psyholinguistics, 739–756. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Poulsen, Mads. 2005. Sentence processing and grammaticality in functional linguistics: Extraction in Danish as an example. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Ross, John Robert. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. Ph.D dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Schütze, Carson T. 1996. The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Snow, Catherine E. & Meijer, Guus. 1977. On the secondary nature of syntactic intuitions. In Greenbaum, Sidney (ed.), Acceptability in language, 163–177. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, William. 2000. An experimental investigation of syntactic satiation effects. Linguistic Inquiry 31, 575–582.Google Scholar
Taraldsen, Knut T. 1982. Extraction from relative clauses in Norwegian. In Engdahl, & Ejerhed, (eds.), 205–221.Google Scholar
Togeby, Ole. 2003. Fungerer denne sætning: Funktionel dansk sproglære. København: Gads Forlag.Google Scholar
Traxler, Matthew & Pickering, Martin J.. 1996. Plausability and the processing of unbounded dependencies: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Memory and Language 35, 454–475.Google Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D. 1995. Towards a functionalist account of so-called extraction constraints. In Devriendt, et al. (eds.), 29–60.Google Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D. & LaPolla, Randy J.. 1997. Syntax: Structure, meaning, and function (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar