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Code-switching – Experimental Answers to Theoretical Questions: In honor of Kay González-Vilbazo
Edited by Luis López
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 19] 2018
► pp. 101–145

That-trace effects in Spanish-English code-switching

| University of Illinois at Chicago
| DePaul University

Many languages, including English, exhibit a restriction on subject extraction over complementizers called the that-trace effect. Although extensively studied, this phenomenon remains a puzzle. Not all languages exhibit the effect; Spanish does not. Spanish also allows postverbal subjects, while English does not, which has been linked to the that-trace effect. Because Spanish/English differ in these properties, combining lexical items from both languages in a single derivation, as in code-switching, offers additional insight into the nature of the restriction. Two acceptability judgment tasks of Spanish/English code-switching reveal that a single Spanish functional head is insufficient to license either postverbal subjects or subject extraction. Instead, we argue, the that-trace effect and related properties arise from the interaction of two heads.

Keywords: that-trace, complementizers, subjects, code-switching
Article outline
  • 1.The problem
  • 2.Background and motivation
    • 2.1Assumptions
    • 2.2Contrasts between Spanish and English
    • 2.3Theoretical background
  • 3.Research questions and predictions
  • 4.Methods
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Procedure
    • 4.3Design and materials
    • 4.4Data pre-processing and statistical analysis
  • 5.Experiment 1: Monolingual object extraction
    • 5.1Experiment 1 design
    • 5.2Experiment 1 results
    • 5.3Experiment 1 discussion
  • 6.Experiment 2: CS object extraction
    • 6.1Experiment 2 design
    • 6.2Experiment 2 results
    • 6.3Experiment 2 discussion
  • 7.Experiment 3: Monolingual subject extraction
    • 7.1Experiment 3 design
    • 7.2Experiment 3 results
    • 7.3Experiment 3 discussion
  • 8.Experiment 4: CS subject extraction
    • 8.1Experiment 4 design
    • 8.2Experiment 4 results
    • 8.3Experiment 4 discussion
  • 9.General discussion
    • 9.1What determines subject position in Spanish-English CS?
    • 9.2What determines whether subject extraction over a complementizer is possible?
    • 9.3Subject position and that-trace
    • 9.4The EPP
    • 9.5CS and experimental syntax
  • 10.Conclusions and future directions
  • Appendix
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.19.05ebe
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