Comp-trace effects: a comparative and psycholinguistic approach

这个项目调查了所谓的COMP-trace效应。这是指在英语和其他几种语言中，当补语（例如that， if, whether）紧接在空主语位置之前时，不能拼写出来。这种情况发生在主语是疑问词，前面是结构较高级的从句时：[谁认为[遇见了汤姆]]=不合语法，[谁认为[遇见了汤姆]=合乎语法。compp -trace效应被认为是一种普遍效应，但在德语和荷兰语中却不存在。此外，到目前为止，对COMP-trace效应还没有令人满意的跨语言解释。有证据表明，COMP-trace效应不是单一因素（无论是语法还是非语法）的结果，而是多个因素的累积，其中一些因素与处理相关。该项目的目标是揭示导致COMP-trace效应的因素，从而对该效应进行结论性分析。这将通过比较密切相关的语言德语、英语和荷兰语来完成。一个将被调查的假设是，德语和荷兰语也显示出comp痕迹效应，尽管形式较温和。第二个将被测试的假设是，COMP-trace效应的强度取决于与加工相关的因素，而这些因素又取决于类型属性，特别是大小写标记和词序。这些假设将通过实验收集的定量判断数据与在线和离线处理措施，特别是阅读时间和理解数据相结合来研究。关于英语，我们将测试一个新颖的假设，即像Who do you think [met Tom]这样的问句中的嵌入从句是一种伪关系从句，其中疑问词（Who）是从句的头部。这一分析的一个预测是，疑问词应该能够以whom的形式出现，假设它是一个矩阵子句的论点。这将通过语法判断任务和生成任务进行测试。

This project investigates the so-called COMP-trace effect. This refers to the fact that in English and several other languages, a complementizer (e.g. that, if, whether) cannot be spelled out when it immediately precedes an empty subject position. This happens, amongst others, when the subject is a question word which is fronted to a structurally higher clause: [Who do you think [that met Tom]] = ungrammatical, [Who do you think [met Tom] = grammatical. The COMP-trace effect is considered to be a universal effect, but has claimed to be absent in German and Dutch. Furthermore, up to this date, no satisfactory, crosslinguistic explanation for the COMP-trace effect has been given. There is evidence that the COMP-trace effect is not the result of a single factor (be it syntactic or non-syntactic), but of an accumulation of several factors, some of which are processing-related. The goal of this project is to uncover the factors that contribute to the COMP-trace effect, leading to a conclusive analysis of this effect. This will be done by comparing the closely related languages German, English and Dutch. One hypothesis that will be investigated is that German and Dutch show a COMP-trace effect as well, albeit in a milder form. A second hypothesis that will be tested is that the strength of the COMP-trace effect is dependent on processing-related factors, which in turn are dependent on typological properties, in particular case-marking and word order. These hypotheses will be investigated by combining experimentally gathered quantitative judgement data with online and offline processing measures, specifically reading time and comprehension data. With regards to English, a novel hypothesis will be tested, namely that the embedded clauses in questions like Who do you think [met Tom] is a type of pseudo-relative clause, of which the question word (who) is the head. One of the predictions of this analysis is that the question word should be able to surface as whom, under the assumption that it is a matrix clause argument. This will be tested by means of a grammaticality judgement task and a production task.