What is experimental syntax good for?

1. What is experimental syntax good for? Grant Goodall UC San Diego

2. Overview of talk • What is “experimental syntax”? • Controversy: What is experimental syntax for? • Case study: Experiments to explore islands and ECP • Conclusions

3. What is experimental syntax? • non-linguist subjects • a clearly defined task, with training and/or practice • factorial design for the construction of sentences

4. Example of factorial design

5. What is experimental syntax? • non-linguist subjects • a clearly defined task, with training and/or practice • factorial design for the construction of sentences • a counterbalanced and randomized sentence list

6. Example of counterbalanced list A 1 A 2 A 3 A 4 A 5 A 6

7. Example of counterbalanced list

8. Example of counterbalanced list

9. Example of counterbalanced list

10. Example of counterbalanced list Subject #1

11. What is experimental syntax? • non-linguist subjects • a clearly defined task, with training and/or practice • factorial design for the construction of sentences • a counterbalanced and randomized sentence list • quantitative results • statistical analysis of the results • Note: This is not an “all or nothing” list!

12. Should we do syntax experimentally? • Yes, definitely! It's not very hard to do an experiment […], so one should do the experiment. Without the quantitative evidence you just have a researcher's potentially biased judgment. I don't think that that's good enough. Ted Gibson, MIT

13. Should we do syntax experimentally? …there is no empirical, logical, or statistical reason to think that … informal experiments … are unreliable. In fact, [they] might be … much more powerful than formal experiments. Not necessarily! Jon Sprouse, UC Irvine Diogo Almeida, UC Irvine

14. Should we do syntax experimentally? • Not necessarily! …one of the things that is at stake is how best to make use of scarce resources. Almost all of us are using money that comes from students' tuition, or from taxpayers' pockets, and when we are running experiments we are typically expending the valuable time of talented young researchers… Colin Phillips, Univ. of Maryland

15. My view • New methods allow us to do new things. • This is not a criticism of earlier methods. They were (and are) useful. • Questions: • What are the new things that we can do? • Are they worth doing?

16. New areas that we can now explore If our models make fine-grained predictions, we have to be able to test those predictions.

17. New areas that we can now explore This forces us to explore the interplay of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, processing…

18. New areas that we can now explore Very difficult to do reliably with traditional methods.

19. New areas that we can now explore If individual differences play a role in acceptability, this opens up a new area of exploration

20. New areas that we can now explore

21. Today: ECP effect and island constraints ECP = that-trace filter • ECP effect *Who do you think that [ __ will see Mary] • Island constraints Wh-island *Who do you wonder whether [Ann saw __] Complex NP Constraint (CNPC) *Who do you believe the claim that [Ann saw __]

22. Some island constraints as processing phenomena? Wh-island: Acceptability varies depending on factors known to affect ease of processing. That’s the campaign [that I was wondering… • [which aide could spearhead __ ]] • [who could spearhead __ ]] • [whether I could spearhead __ ]] • [whether to spearhead __ ]] Kluender 2004

23. Some island constraints as processing phenomena? CNPC: Acceptability varies depending on factors known to affect ease of processing. I saw who / which convictEmma doubted [DP the report that we had captured ___ in the nationwide FBI manhunt ] Hofmeister & Sag (2010)

24. Effect of wh-filler Non-island CNPC Which + N filler Bare wh-filler

25. Where we are at this point • Some island phenomena may be due to processing, not grammar. • Question: Does processing play a significant role in ECP effects?

26. Yes: ECP due to processing • Hawkins (2004): *Who do you think that [ __ will see Mary] • That does not help processing, is redundant. • That increases distance between filler + gap. • So version with that is dispreferred. Signals beginning of embedded clause Signals beginning of embedded clause

27. No: ECP due to grammar • Rizzi & Shlonsky (2007): Subject Criterion: DP moving into subject position is frozen in place. *Who do you think that [ __ will see Mary] This is part of larger theory of “Criterial Freezing” Violates Subject Criterion

28. No: ECP due to grammar How languages vary: • Fixed subject strategies: The subject doesn’t move; it remains in its freezing position. • Skipping strategies: The subject moves, but is allowed to skip the freezing position. English uses B: Who do you think [ __ will see Mary] Truncated structure: -no that -no extraction from freezing position

29. In rest of talk… • Will present experimental evidence that island effects and ECP effect are very different. • Processing account may be good for island effects, but not for ECP effect. • Experiments are from various projects in my lab, (hopefully) of interest in their own right. • 4 experiments, each approaching problem from different angle.

30. Exp #1: Is ECP effect real? In collaboration with: • Shin Fukuda • Dan Michel • Henry Beecher

31. Exp #1: Is ECP effect real? • 3 different response methods • 36 participants each (108 total).

32. Results Categorical (yes/no)5-point (Likert)Magnitude estimation ♦ = no that ■ = that

33. Conclusion • ECP effect is real!

34. Exp #2: Satiation • Satiation: Unacceptable sentences increase in acceptability after repeated exposure. • Snyder (2000): • Satiation can be induced experimentally. • Not all sentence types are susceptible.

35. Exp #2: Satiation Goodall, G. (2011), Syntactic Satiation and the Inversion Effect in English and Spanish Wh-Questions. Syntax, 14: 29–47. • Goodall (2011): • 5 blocks of 10 sentences (50 total) • Each block contains 4 acceptable + 6 unacceptable sentence types. • Sentence types are the same, but lexicalization varies in each block. • Among the unacceptable sentence types: • CNPC: *Who do you believe the claim that [Ann saw __] • ECP: *Who do you think that [ __ will see Mary]

36. Results I

37. Results II

38. Conclusion • CNPC (island effect): Susceptible to satiation. • ECP effect: Not susceptible to satiation. • Consistent with CNPC as processing effect. • Processor adapts to demands. • Consistent with ECP as grammatical effect. • Subject Criterion is hard principle.

39. Exp #3: ECP + islands in L2 • Boyoung Kim

40. Exp #3: ECP + islands in L2 • 3 groups of subjects: • “Early” Korean immigrants (AoA = 6 - 10, N=36) • “Late” Korean immigrants (AoA = 12 - 15, N=36) • Native controls (N=70) • Subjects rated English sentences (9-point scale) • Extraction of embedded subject and object, with/without that. • Extraction of object from embedded that-clause, wh-clause, complex NP

41. Results I ■ = no that ♦ = that

42. Results II

43. Conclusions • Island effects: L2 groups very similar to natives. • ECP effect: L2 groups very different from natives. • Consistent with islands as processing effects. • L2ers face same processing problems as natives. • Consistent with ECP effect as grammatical. • L2ers have Subject Criterion, are slow to acquire strategy to avoid it.

44. Exp #4: Resumptive pronouns • Bethany Keffala

45. Exp #4: Resumptive pronouns • Potential problem: • If island and ECP effects are both “saved” by resumptive pronouns, does this suggest a common source of unacceptability? CNPC: Who do you believe the claim that [Ann saw __/him]? ECP: Who do you think that [ __/he will see Mary]?

46. Exp #4: Resumptive pronouns • 121 participants • 11-point scale

47. Exp #4: Resumptive pronouns

48. Results

49. Conclusions Resumptive pronouns: • Don’t save illicit gaps. • Show a relatively constant level of (un)acceptability, unrelated to the level of acceptability of the gap. • Are not a counterexample to the claim that island and ECP effects have different sources.

50. Summary of 4 experiments