Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10461376 | Lingua | 2005 | 27 Pages |
Abstract
In this paper we report results from four psycholinguistic experiments on the resolution of the Italian null subject pronoun (pro), supporting the view that different nominal phi-features have different degrees of cognitive strength, as implied by the Feature Hierarchy (Person>Number>Gender) [Universals of Language, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 73; Language 78 (2002) 482]. The experimental findings show that the processing penalty for forcing pro to retrieve a referent introduced in an object position-against pro's antecedent preference for a referent introduced in a subject position-is significantly reduced when features higher on the Feature Hierarchy play a role in the disambiguation of the pronoun. This evidence provides support for recent proposals in the literature that assign different phi-features a different grammatical status in the core syntax. In particular, it argues for a special treatment in the syntax of 1st and 2nd person vs. 3rd along the lines of proposals such as Speas [Lingua], and for the representation of number, but not of gender, as an independent functional projection [Actes du deuxieme colloque 'Langues et Grammaire', Paris, p. 95].
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities
Arts and Humanities
Language and Linguistics
Authors
Maria Nella Carminati,