Generativist pragmatists and discourse grammarians both subscribe to a functional view of language, but they do not agree on the nature of pragmatic principles. Prince (1988a,b) has argued that form-function correlations are arbitrary and language specific. Discourse grammarians have argued that pragmatic, and even grammatical rules, emerge out of universal, natural and predictable extralinguistic pressures. I will argue that although the distribution of gaps and resumptive pronouns in relative clauses seems arbitrary and language specific, one cognitively-based form-function principle governs their distribution. Relative clauses where the head is highly accessible when the relativized position is processed take gaps, whereas relative clauses which maintain a relatively low degree of accessibility of the head when the relativized position is processed take resumptive pronouns. The differences between languages are then attributed to language-specific grammaticization processes, rather than to different motivations and/or discoursal patterns.
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2022. A sequence labelling approach for automatic analysis of ello: tagging pronouns, antecedents, and connective phrases. Language Resources and Evaluation 56:1 ► pp. 139 ff.
Chung, Sandra & Matthew W. Wagers
2021. On the universality of intrusive resumption: Evidence from Chamorro and Palauan. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 39:3 ► pp. 759 ff.
Han, Chung-hye
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Meltzer-Asscher, Aya
2021. Acceptability Studies in Semitic Languages. In The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax, ► pp. 505 ff.
Meltzer-Asscher, Aya
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Wildner, Nikolaus
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Keshev, Maayan & Aya Meltzer-Asscher
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Chacón, Dustin A.
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Checa-Garcia, Irene
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2019. Stepping back to look ahead: neuter encapsulation and referent extension in counter-argumentative and causal relations in Spanish. Language and Cognition 11:3 ► pp. 431 ff.
Radford, Andrew
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Ackerman, Lauren, Michael Frazier & Masaya Yoshida
2018. Resumptive Pronouns Can Ameliorate Illicit Island Extractions. Linguistic Inquiry 49:4 ► pp. 847 ff.
HAENDLER, Yair & Flavia ADANI
2018. Testing the effect of an arbitrary subject pronoun on relative clause comprehension: a study with Hebrew-speaking children. Journal of Child Language 45:4 ► pp. 959 ff.
2018. Always look back: Eye movements as a reflection of anaphoric encapsulation in Spanish while reading the neuter pronoun ello. Journal of Pragmatics 132 ► pp. 47 ff.
Jaeger, T. Florian & Esteban Buz
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Hitz, John & Elaine J. Francis
2016. On the usefulness of formal judgment tasks in syntax and in second-language research: The case of resumptive pronouns in English, Turkish, and Mandarin Chinese
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Lau, Elaine
2016. The role of resumptive pronouns in Cantonese relative clause acquisition. First Language 36:4 ► pp. 355 ff.
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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