CNL Lunch

Matt Walenski (Georgetown University)

The Processing of Infinitival Complements:Ê Raising Issues of Competence and Performance

Thursday November 29th 2001, 12:30pm, 3416 Marie Mount Hall

This work examines the relationship between theories of language structure (i.e. grammar) and theories of the real-time comprehension of language (i.e. parsing), by investigating English infinitival complements that follow either of two types of predicate: (1) subject control predicates (e.g., try; The nurse tried to stay in good health); or (2) subject raising predicates (e.g., seem; The nurse seemed to stay in good health). Subject control predicates assign q-roles to their subject (e.g., nurse), while subject raising predicates don't. This difference has structural consequences in some grammatical frameworks (e.g., GB, which proposes the empty categories PRO and NP-trace in the subordinate subject position for control and raising respectively) but not others (e.g., LFG). Results from a cross-modal priming study of these constructions, using both priming and interference measures, found evidence of priming for the main clause subject co-incident with the infinitival marker to (purported empty category position) after a raising predicate, but delayed by 300 ms following a control predicate. No differences in processing load were observed at either position. Competing interpretations of these results based on GB, LFG, and parsing strategies will be discussed