Gone with a trace?
Reactivation at PRO positions
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.
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
References
Åfarli, T. A., & Eide, K. M.
(
2003)
Norsk generativ syntaks. Oslo: Novus Forlag.

Alsina, A.
(
1992)
On the argument structure of causatives.
Linguistic Inquiry, 23(4), 517–555.

Baltin, M.
(
1995)
Floating quantifiers, PRO and predication.
Linguistic Inquiry, 26(2), 199–248.

Boeckx, C., Hornstein, N., & Nunes, J.
(
2010)
Control as movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Carnie, A.
(
2013)
Syntax: A generative introduction (3rd ed.). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Chomsky, N.
(
1982)
Some concepts and consequences of the theory of government and binding. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Chomsky, N.
(
1993)
Lectures on government and binding: The Pisa lectures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (Original work published 1981).


Chomsky, N., & Lasnik, H.
(
1993)
The theory of principles and parameters. In
J. Jacobs,
A. von Stechow,
W. Sternefeld &
T. Vennemann (Eds.),
Syntax: An international handbook of contemporary research (Vol. 1, pp. 506–569). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Dixon, R. M. W., & Aikhenvald, A. Y.
(Eds.) (
2000)
Changing valency: Case studies in transitivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Faarlund, J. T.
(
2015)
The Norwegian infinitive marker.
Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax, 95, 1–10.

Faarlund, J. T., Lie, S., & Vannebo, K. I.
(
1997)
Norsk referansegrammatikk (
Norwegian reference grammar). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Hestvik, A., Nordby, H., & Karlsen, G.
(
2005)
Antecedent reactivation by surface and deep anaphora in Norwegian.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 46(3), 229–38.


Hestvik, A., Schwartz, R. G., & Tornyova, L.
(
2010)
Relative clause gap-filling in children with Specific Language Impairment.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39(5), 443–456.


Hornstein, N.
(
1999)
Movement and Control.
Linguistic Inquiry, 30(1), 69– 96.


Hornstein, N., & Nunes, J.
(
2014)
Minimalism and Control. In
A. Carnie,
D. Siddiqi, &
Y. Sato (Eds.),
Routledge handbook of syntax (pp. 239–263). Abingdon: Routledge.


Janke, V.
(
2003)
A PRO-less theory of Control. In
A. Neeleman &
R. Vermeulen (Eds.),
University College London Working Papers in Linguistics (UCLWPL) (Vol. 15, pp. 213–242). London: UCL.

Janke, V.
(
2008)
Control without a subject.
Lingua, 118(1), 82–118.


Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B., & Christensen, R. H. B.
(
2016)
lmerTest: Tests in linear mixed effects models. R package version 2.0-32.

Larsen, T. N.
(
2017)
Control and raising: Gone with(out) a trace?
(Unpublished MA thesis). The University of Bergen.
Lødrup, H.
(
2008)
Raising to object in Norwegian and the derived object constraint.
Studia Linguistica, 62(2), 155–181.


Manzini, M. R., & Roussou, A.
(
2000)
A minimalist theory of A-movement and control.
Lingua, 110(6), 409–447.


Martin, R.
(
2001)
Null case and the distribution of PRO.
Linguistic Inquiry, 32(1), 141–166.


Neeleman, A., & van de Koot, H.
(
2002)
The configurational matrix.
Linguistic Inquiry, 33(4), 529–574.


Nicol, J.
(
1988)
Coreference processing during sentence comprehension
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). MIT.
Nicol, J., & Osterhout, L.
(
1988)
Reactivating antecedents of empty categories during parsing (Unpublished manuscript). University of Arizona, Tucson.
Nicol, J., & Swinney, D.
(
1989)
The role of structure in coreference assignment during sentence comprehension.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 18(1), 5–19.


Postal, P.
(
1974)
On raising: One rule of English grammar and its theoretical implications. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Radford, A.
(
2004)
Minimalist syntax: Exploring the structure of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Reed, L.
(
2014)
Strengthening the PRO hypothesis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Rosenbaum, P.
(
1967)
The grammar of English predicate complement constructions. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Schumacher, P. B., Dangl, M., & Uzun, E.
(
2016)
Thematic role as prominence cue during pronoun resolution in German. In
A. Holler &
K. Suckow (Eds.),
Empirical perspectives on anaphora resolution (pp. 121–147). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Sigurðsson, H.
(
2008)
The case of PRO.
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 26(2), 403–450.


Walenski, M.
(
2002)
Relating parsers and grammars: On the structure and real-time comprehension of English infinitival complements
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California, San Diego.
Williams, E.
(
1980)
Predication.
Linguistic Inquiry, 11(1), 203–238.

Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Larsen, Tori & Christer Johansson
2022.
Control in a Norwegian grammar maze.
Nordic Journal of Linguistics ► pp. 1 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.