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Typical and Impaired Processing in Morphosyntax
Edited by Vincent Torrens
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 64] 2020
► pp. 91–116

Gone with a trace?

Reactivation at PRO positions

| University of Bergen
| University of Bergen

PRO is a theoretically attractive empty category proposed to fill the subject position in non-finite clauses. This chapter is concerned with the empirical evidence for PRO. We investigate reactivation patterns in Control sentences in Norwegian with data from two reaction time experiments. We use a picture recognition task to measure the time and position of PRO antecedent reactivation during sentence processing. The data analysis explores a baseline that has the ability to separate syntactic priming (correct PRO antecedent reactivation) and repetition priming. We find a significant effect of position and an effect of syntactic priming for Subject Control using mixed effects models. We discuss possible theoretical implications and necessary future research.

Keywords: control, PRO, coreference, trace, reactivation, priming, Norwegian, sentence processing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Control sentences
      • 1.1.1Subject Control
      • 1.1.2Object Control
    • 1.2Raising sentences
      • 1.2.1Subject-to-Subject raising
      • 1.2.2Subject-to-Object raising
    • 1.3Our objective
  • 2.The current study
    • 2.1Objective and hypothesis: Pilot experiment
      • 2.1.1Rationale
      • 2.1.2Participants
      • 2.1.3Materials
      • 2.1.4Procedure
      • 2.1.5Results
      • 2.1.6Summary pilot study
    • 2.2Objective and hypotheses: Main experiment
      • 2.2.1Rationale
      • 2.2.2Participants
      • 2.2.3Materials
      • 2.2.4Procedure
      • 2.2.5Results
  • 3.Discussion
    • 3.1Pilot experiment
    • 3.2Main Experiment
      • 3.2.1Subject Control
      • 3.2.2Object Control
      • 3.2.3Interpretation Subject Control and Object Control
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgement
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 21 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.64.05lar
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