Title: Avoidance Strategies in the Processing of Relative Clauses
Abstract: This paper argues that what previous studies of relative clause (RC) processing have called avoidance strategy can actually be a strategy to simplify the rather complex Agree relations (Schulz, 2011) between a multiple number of probes in CP phase and goals in vP phase. Object RC involves two occurrences of probe-goal relations (Chomsky, 2008), which must evidently be difficult to process at some instance because such a relation is subject to processing cost (Pesetsky & Torrego, 2006). The learner then generates a derivation in which two probes - C and T - share the same goal, and the spell-out turns out to be a passivized object RC in SVO languages like English (Belletti, 2009). In SOV languages like Korean, learner gets by intended object RC via introducing a resumptive NP and a base-generated operator - both are free of processing cost (Chomsky, 2008). This spell-out becomes an object head-internal relative clause (HIRC). The concluding remark states that avoidance strategy is therefore a way to reduce the processing cost via simplifying the intended derivation while sacrificing grammaticality or acceptability despite of marginality.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-02-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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