Clausal Ellipsis, Its Structure and Online Processing

本研究旨在从理论句法和在线句子处理的角度探讨省略结构。 具体而言，该项目强调认为，省略的理论句法的详细研究提供了宝贵的洞察机制的结构建设过程中的在线句子处理。 在这个项目中将要研究的特殊类型的省略被称为"冲洗"（例如，"John said玛丽was阅读in the garden，but he didn't say what"）.以往的省略研究都是用"冲"来反驳语法支持不发音的抽象句法结构的观点。(e.g., 因为清除并不总是遵守语法岛约束）。 吉田博士将研究是否省略网站在冲洗与一个完整的句法结构，如果是这样，这些网站的句法属性是什么。此外，本实验还将考察：（1）句法分析者何时识别省略，（2）句法分析者在线处理过程中在省略位点建立了什么样的表征，（3）句法分析者在线处理过程中在省略位点建立了什么样的表征，（4）句法分析者在线处理过程中在省略位点建立了什么样的表征。以及（iii）在线结构构建过程遵守什么约束。除了推进我们对自然语言语法的理解以及人类如何识别和处理本计划亦将为语言学及心理语言学的研究生提供宝贵的训练机会。

The purpose of this project is to investigate the structure of ellipsis from the point of view of theoretical syntax and online sentence processing. Specifically, the project emphasizes the view that a detailed study in the theoretical syntax of ellipsis provides invaluable insight into the mechanism of the structure building process in online sentence processing. The particular type of ellipsis that will be examined in this project is known as 'sluicing' (e.g., "John said Mary was reading in the garden, but he didn't say what").Previous studies of ellipsis have used sluicing as an argument against the position that the grammar supports the unpronounced abstract syntactic structure. (e.g., because sluicing does not always respect syntactic island constraints). Dr. Yoshida will investigate whether ellipsis sites in sluicing are associated with a full-fledged syntactic structure and, if so, what the syntactic properties of those sites are. In addition, the experimental studies of how sluicing constructions are processed on line will investigate: (i) When the parser identifies the ellipsis; (ii) What representation the parser builds in the ellipsis site during online processing; and (iii) What constraint the online structure building process obeys.In addition to advancing our understanding of the syntax of natural language and how humans identify and process the structure of sentences in the course of language comprehension, this project will also provide valuable training opportunities for graduate students in linguistics and psycholinguistics.