Grammar and Processing of Resumptive Pronouns

Researchers of sentence structure consider the presence of dependencies between two linguistic items as one of the defining properties of language. One example of such a dependency is the link between a gap in a relative clause and the head noun. For example, in 'a man [who the officer arrested _],' the object of 'arrested' is absent, and so it is a gap (marked as _) within the relative clause. The head noun 'man' is far away from 'arrested', but is interpreted in the gap as the object of 'arrested'. In this way, the head noun and the gap inside the relative clause form a dependency. Although these dependencies can be long spanning across clauses, they are restricted from forming across certain structures, such as wh-complement and adjunct clauses. Native speakers of English however often produce relative clauses filled with a pronoun, called a resumptive pronoun (RP), in cases where a gap would result in unacceptable strings (a man [who the prosecutor knows [why the officer arrested _/him]]). The main goal of the proposed research is to further our understanding of the processing and grammar of the dependencies between head nouns and RPs in relative clauses with an emphasis on English and Korean, two typologically distinct languages. The proposed research will employ experimental methods to collect, measure and analyze immediate reactions as well as considered judgments from multiple native speakers, making use of insights from both theoretical syntax and psycholinguistic experimentation.