ThePsycholinguiscsofEllipsis - Linguistics at...

The Psycholinguis/cs of Ellipsis

Colin Phillips & Dan Parker

Department of Linguis/cs Neuroscience & Cogni/ve Science Program

University of Maryland

languagescience.umd.edu

Overview

•  Gramma/cal alterna/ves

•  Experimental inves/ga/ons of ellipsis: 3 leading themes

•  Spoiler: these themes don’t resolve today’s debate •  Theme #1: mismatching antecedents

•  Interlude: theories and experiments on wh-‐movement and anaphora

•  Theme #2: accessing informa/on about antecedents

•  Theme #3: does size maQer (or distance)?

Slides available at hQp://www.ling.umd.edu/colin, under downloadable papers

A. Nature of antecedent

seman/c/ discourse

syntac/c (roughly)

B. Content of ellipsis site

pointer/ anaphor

detailed structure

C. Deriva7onal status of structure at ellipsis site

only pre spell-‐out only post

spell-‐out

throughout

Bal/n Merchant Li

Dalrymple et al. 1991 Hardt 1993, etc.

Alterna7ves

Many!

Sag 1976, Williams 1977, Fiengo & May 1994, etc.

Experiments on Ellipsis: Three Themes

1.   Mismatching antecedents

What to make of mismatches between antecedent and ellipsis site e.g., Seeing the comet was nearly impossible, but John did __.

2.  Accessing informa/on about antecedents

3.  Does size (or distance) maQer?


seman/c/ discourse

syntac/c (roughly)


pointer/ anaphor

detailed structure



spell-‐out

throughout

Bal/n Merchant Li


Alterna7ves

Mismatch Studies

Mostly acceptability ra/ngs Exploring gramma/cal status

of mismatches

e.g., Arregui, Cliaon, Frazier, & Moulton, 2006; Kim, Kobele, Runner, & Hale, 2010

Consistent judgments/RTs Interesting stories Early days in testing what’s inside/outside grammar


1.  Mismatching antecedents


2.   Accessing informa7on about antecedents

Does processing of the ellipsis site involve accessing words from the antecedent (seman/cs or phonology)? Are binding rela/ons between elided and non-‐elided material rapidly computed?

3.  Does size (or distance) maQer?


seman/c/ discourse

syntac/c (roughly)


pointer/ anaphor

detailed structure



spell-‐out

throughout

Bal/n Merchant Li


Alterna7ves

Accessing Antec. Features

Cross-‐modal lexical decision Visual world eye-‐tracking Self-‐paced reading, etc.

e.g., Shapiro & Hestvik 1995; Snider & Runner 2010; Yoshida, Dickey, & Sturt, 2011; Kaan, Wijnen, & Swaab, 2004

Various interesting effects Shows rapid access to antecedent … but does this show what’s in ellipsis site?


1.  Mismatching antecedents


2.  Accessing informa/on about antecedents

Does processing of the ellipsis site involve accessing words from the antecedent (seman/cs or phonology)? Are binding rela/ons between elided and non-‐elided material rapidly computed?

3.   Does size (or distance) maEer?

Does resolu/on of ellipsis become slower/harder for larger/distant antecedents?


seman/c/ discourse

syntac/c (roughly)


pointer/ anaphor

detailed structure



spell-‐out

throughout

Bal/n Merchant Li


Alterna7ves

Size/Distance Studies

“Got it” seman/c judgments Self-‐paced reading Speed-‐accuracy tradeoff (SAT)

e.g., Murphy 1985; Frazier & Cliaon 2001; Mar/n & McElree 2008

A number of studies, and emerging consensus that size does not matter (different morals drawn) … but are the finings conclusive?


seman/c/ discourse

syntac/c (roughly)


pointer/ anaphor

detailed structure



spell-‐out

throughout

Bal/n Merchant Li


Alterna7ves



spell-‐out

throughout

Bal/n Merchant Li

They agree: detailed structural representa/on in ellipsis site

They disagree: deriva/onal “/ming”

They don’t tell us: how their deriva/ons relate to real-‐/me mechanisms

So we’ll make something up for them …

A. Very liQle rela/on (cf. Townsend & Bever, 2001) no predic/ons

B. Real-‐/me mechanism incrementally builds a representa/on that includes sound (PF), meaning (LF), plus media/ng structure iden/cal predic/ons Any evidence of building structure at ellipsis site fits all 3 proposals

Moral For psycholinguists to help with your grammatical disputes, it helps to come clean about your mentalistic commitments

(for menu of options, cf. Phillips & Lewis 2010)

Theme #1: Mismatches

“This informa/on could have been released by Gorbachev, but he chose not to ___.”

aQributed to Daniel Schorr, NPR cited in Hardt 1993

release this information

Theme #1: Mismatches •  ‘Acceptability cline’ across various forms of antecedent-‐ellipsis mismatches

(Arregui, Cliaon, Frazier, & Moulton 2006; Kim, Kobele, Runner, & Hale 2010)

•  Various judgment studies fine-‐tune generaliza/ons Appeal to parser proper/es to account for mismatches

•  Ac7ve-‐Passive > Passive-‐Ac7ve a. The advisor praised the student, and the old school-‐master was. b. The student was praised by the old school-‐master, and the advisor did too.

Verbal Gerunds > Nominal Gerunds a. Singing the arias tomorrow night will be difficult, but Maria will. b. Tomorrow night’s singing of the arias will be difficult, but Maria will.

Category N-‐VP > Adj-‐VP a. The cri/cism of Roy was harsh, but Kate didn’t. b. The report was cri/cal of Roy, but Kate didn’t.

Theme #1: Mismatches

Arregui, Cliaon, Frazier, & Moulton 2006

•  VPE requires syntac/c iden/ty … standard no/on

•  VPE mismatches are ungramma/cal

•  Par/al acceptability reflects repair

•  VP-‐repair (‘recycling’)

–  Transform mismatching antecedent

–  Rules guide repair process

–  Cline reflects amount of repair work

Kim, Kobele, Runner, & Hale 2010

•  VPE requires syntac/c iden/ty … in a novel gram. analysis

•  VPE mismatches are gramma/cal

•  Par/al acceptability reflects search

•  Search heuris/cs

–  Search for matching antecedent

–  Constraints guide search for matching antecedent

–  Cline reflects amount of search work

Interlude

Experimental findings in other theore/cally conten/ous domains

Competing accounts of ellipsis

He ate something but I don’t know what he ate __.

He ate something but I don’t know what. No/minimal null structure ��Anaphor/‘pointer’ account

Null structure at foot of dep. ��All of today’s speakers

Competing accounts of wh-dependencies

What do Englishmen cook gap/trace/copy

What do Englishmen cook Direct Association ��HPSG/GPSG ��Categorial Grammar��Dependency Grammar��etc.

Null structure at foot of dep. ��Transformational Grammar��(--> Projection Principle)

Competing accounts of anaphora

John thinks that Mary hates him. Standard view ��Anaphor points to content elsewhere in syntax/discourse

Pronominalization (Postal)��Movement theory of control/reflexives (Hornstein et al.)

John thinks that Mary hates him John.

Experiments as Theory Arbitrators

Many of the themes raised in experiments on ellipsis have been inves/gated in experiments on wh-‐dependencies and anaphora.

Wh-‐dependencies: much discussion of whether expt. findings are decisive regarding gaps/traces vs. direct associa/on.

Conclusion: the /ming evidence probably isn’t decisive (yet). Gibson & Hickok 1993; Phillips & Wagers 2007; Kempen, LSA 2011

So it’s interes/ng to see parallel arguments being presented as theore/cally decisive in the case of ellipsis.

Anaphora: nobody thinks they’re tes/ng pronominaliza/on etc.

Cross-‐modal Priming

The policeman saw the boy that the crowd at the party accused __ of the crime.

Seman7c Associate Priming Swinney, Ford, Frauenfelder, & Bresnan 1988; Nicol & Swinney 1989; McKoon, Ratcliff & Ward 1994; Nicol, Fodor, & Swinney 1994

The man was surprised at which beer/wine the judges awarded the first prize to __.

fear

girl

group

Rhyme Priming Tanenhaus, Carlson, & Seidenberg 1985

Eye-‐fixa7ons in visual world

Verb Onset

WH

YN

400 ms

Fixa/ons on picture of cake

1. eat

2. wash

Q: Can you tell me…

Wh: … what Emily was ea/ng the cake with ___ ?

YN: … if Emily was ea/ng the cake with the fork?

Omaki, Trock, Wagers, Lidz & Phillips, 2009

Pronouns & Lexical Proper/es

•  In pronoun genera/on (produc/on) phonological proper/es of the antecedent are accessed

(SchmiQ, Meyer, & Levelt 1999)

•  In pronoun comprehension, effects of lexical frequency of the antecedent

(van Gompel & Majid 2004; Lago, Chow, & Phillips in prep.)

•  These effects show how antecedents are accessed

Few would consider them as evidence for Postal-‐style pronominalizaBon

Point of the Interlude …

•  In wh-‐dependencies and anaphora, many interes/ng experiments show how antecedent informa/on is accessed, and when.

This is all very useful for building an account of real-‐/me computa/on.

•  But evidence on access to antecedent proper/es does not show whether there’s unpronounced structure at the foot of the dependency

For any argument for full structure at an ellipsis site, ask this ques/on:

Would the same argument convince us of the need for (i) traces/gaps for wh-‐movement, or (ii) a transformaBonal analysis of anaphora?

Theme #2

Accessing Antecedents

Accessing Words in Antecedent

Cross-‐modal lexical decision shows seman/c priming of noun inside antecedent (Shapiro, Hestvik, Lesan, & Garcia, 2003)

The old professor [VP loved the ocean], and the teenager […] did __ too …

Syntac/cally-‐defined antecedent accessed at ellipsis site.

PACIFIC

TEACHER

Accessing Antecedent Proper7es

Snider & Runner, AMLaP 2010 (& Sat. 10:30am)

The customer dropped the lock, and the manager did too.

The security guard opened the lock, and the night manager did too.

Experiment 1: seman7c associates

Experiment 2: phonological associates

lock

key

log

lock

“Only if syntac/c structure is present in ellipsis site should phonological informa/on be reac/vated.”

These arguments for syntactic structure in ellipsis parallel earlier findings on wh-dependencies and pronoun processing.

Fast Use of Syntac/c Constraints •  Rapid building of binding rela/ons in sluicing (Yoshida, Dickey, & Sturt 2011)

Jane’s {grandfather|grandmother} told some stories at the family reunion, but we couldn’t remember which story about himself … [sentence con/nues]

Gender mismatch effect at reflexive when sluicing is a viable op/on (No corresponding effect at reflexive when pied-‐piped wh-‐PP blocks sluicing)

•  Rapid sensi/vity to islands in sluicing vs. sprou/ng (Yoshida et al. 2010)

Nick’s father was startled … because he smoked secretly in the garden because he smoked something in the garden … but it wasn’t clear what …

Evidence of immediate sensi/vity to islands for sprou/ng vs. sluicing

•  Clever contrasts – but they mo/vate structure at ellipsis site to the same extent that connec/vity effects in wh-‐movement mo/vate traces.

Fast resolu/on of gapping

•  ERPs suggest rapid detec/on of implausibility in gapped sentences (Kaan, Wijnen, & Swaab 2004)

Ron took the planks for the bookcase, and Bill __ the hammer … Ron sanded the planks for the bookcase, and Bill __ the hammer …

N400 to implausible verb-‐noun combina/on

“the sentence processor […] reconstructs the verb informa/on at the earliest possible occasion” (p. 584)

Any mechanism that gets the meaning can capture this.

Theme #3: Does size maQer?

•  “The canonical interpreta/on of a literal copy mechanism is that copying more informa/on should take more /me. One could simply assert that ‘copying’ does not require /me, but we suggest that in that case, the no/on ‘copy’ is no longer explanatory.” (Mar/n & McElree 2008, p. 894)

•  A number of studies have tested whether size/complexity affects the /me needed for ellipsis resolu/on.

Mixed results. But most currently assume that the evidence shows no size cost.

•  Size effect ≠ copy mechanism No size effect = no copy mechanism

Reason: merely accessing a complex antecedent could take a while

Yes – size maQers! •  Shorter antecedents yield shorter response /mes in an end-‐of-‐sentence “got

it” task (Murphy 1985)

Short Antecedent: Jimmy swept the /le floor behind the chair

Long Antecedent : Jimmy swept the /le floor behind the chair free of hair and cigareQes.

Ellipsis: Later, his uncle did too.

•  Size effect only holds for nearby antecedents. It disappears when distance between antecedent and ellipsis is increased by adding an intervening sentence.

Evidence cri/cized by Tanenhaus & Carlson (1990) based on poss. confounds

long antecedent: 244ms slower RTs

No – it doesn’t! •  Widely cited lack of antecedent size effects in VPE (Frazier & Cliaon 2000, 2001)

Short Antecedent: Sarah lea her boyfriend last May. Long Antecedent : Sarah got up the courage to leave her boyfriend last May.

Ellipsis: Tina did too.

•  F&C conclude cost free copying … what Mar/n & McElree call non-‐explanatory

•  Although F&C’s paper reports mul/ple studies, this is the only specific test of the antecedent size effect.

Measure: reading /me to final region in self-‐paced reading – not best prac/ce. Small study: half the size of a regular study ( reduced power), intermiQent comprehension ques/ons. No effect? Numerical slowdown in some comparisons (50ms), not reliable.

Speed-‐Accuracy Tradeoff (SAT) Memory Access

No – it doesn’t!

Version 2 – Mar/n & McElree 2008

SAT: Possible Outcomes

Fig. 3 presents hypothetical SAT functions illustrat-ing how di!erent SAT timecourse patterns can dis-criminate between alternative retrieval processes.Consider first the expected result that interpolating morematerial between the filler and gap position decreases theaccuracy of responding. Recall that this could be be-cause there is a lower probability that a representationof the filler is available when the verb is processed and/or

because there is a higher probability of misanalyzingmaterial up to and including the final verb. If additionalmaterial decreases only the overall accuracy of re-sponding, the corresponding functions will di!er in as-ymptotic level alone. Panel A depicts two hypotheticalconditions that di!er in this manner.

The pre-asymptotic portion of the SAT functionmeasures processing speed or dynamics, jointly specifiedby the intercept of the function (when accuracy departsfrom chance, d 0 ! 0) and the rate at which accuracygrows from intercept to asymptote. The intercept mea-sures the minimum time needed to form an interpreta-tion that would serve to discriminate acceptable fromunacceptable forms. The rate of the SAT function re-flects either the rate of continuous information accrual ifprocessing is continuous or the distribution of finishingtimes if processing is discrete or quantal (Dosher, 1976,1979, 1981, 1982, 1984; Meyer, Irwin, Osman, & Kou-nois, 1988). In either case, di!erences in intercept or rateimplicate underlying di!erences in the speed of pro-cessing. This situation is depicted in Panel B of Fig. 3,where the functions are associated with di!erent inter-cepts and rates of rise to a common asymptote.

If access to the filler!s representation requires a searchprocess when the matrix verb is encountered, then theSAT intercept and/or rate of will systematically slow asmore material is interpolated between the filler and gap.Rate or intercept di!erences can arise from factors otherthan retrieval speed; for example, they might arise fromdi!erences in the inherent complexity of computing

Fig. 2. Sample trial sequence illustrating the speed-accuracy tradeo! (SAT) variant of the acceptability judgment task.

Fig. 3. Hypothetical SAT functions illustrating two conditionsthat di!er by SAT asymptote only (A) or by SAT intercept andrate (B).

B. McElree et al. / Journal of Memory and Language 48 (2003) 67–91 73

Asympto7c difference Reflects the strength of the representa/on or the likelihood of comple/ng a parse/process.

Rate/intercept difference Reflects the speed of processing: how quickly informa/on accumulates con/nuously, or the differences in an underlying discrete finishing /me distribu/on.

VP-‐complexity manipula7on (Expt 3)

The history professor understood Roman mythology … The history professor understood Rome’s swia and brutal destruc/on of Carthage …

… but the principal was displeased to learn that the overworked students […] did not. … but the principal was displeased to learn that the overly worn books […] did not

Mar/n & McElree 2008

Antecedent distance effect (Expt 1)

no effect of complexity on dynamics or asymptote

distance affects asymptote, but not dynamics

VP-‐complexity manipula7on (Expt 3)

The history professor understood Roman mythology … The history professor understood Rome’s swia and brutal destruc/on of Carthage …

… but the principal was displeased to learn that the overworked students […] did not. … but the principal was displeased to learn that the overly worn books […] did not

Mar/n & McElree 2008

no effect of complexity on dynamics or asymptote

But …

The /me course profile measures the sensicality judgment task. Task requires only matching of subject with antecedent verb. Added complexity isn’t relevant.

Needed: a version of this study where en/re VP is task relevant.

Cau/onary Note from Wh-‐studies •  Larger antecedents some/mes correspond to shorter reading /mes at foot of

wh-‐dependency (Hofmeister 2007)

What did the reporter that Scooter avoided discuss … Which poll did the reporter that Scooter avoided discuss … Which poliBcal poll did the reporter that Scooter avoided discuss …

It was a communist who the members of the club banned … It was an alleged communist who the members of the club banned … It was an alleged Venezuelan communist who the members of the club banned …

•  Hofmeister aQributes effects to elabora/on or depth of encoding in memory.

Moral: bigger antecedents aren’t all harder

Figure 4: Residual reading times at subcategorizing verb inexperiment 3

ninety-two other items acted as fillers for this data set.

Participants The same thirty-five native English speak-ers from experiment 2 participated in this experiment.

Results Following the results from the previous exper-iments, the most informative indefinites induced fasterreading times at the verb than the least informative indef-inites. This effect was nearly significant by subjects andsignificant by items (F1(1,34) = 5.351, p = .063, F2(1,15) =3.690, p <.05). On the other hand, the comparisons betweenthe SIMPLE and MID conditions and between the MID andCOMPLEX conditions were not significant. The differencebetween these conditions is the presence or absence of oneadjective, as was the case with the which-phrases in thepreceding experiment. Hence, not just any single addition ofinformation necessarily improves retrieval. Note, however,that this does not contradict the predictions of the memoryfacilitation hypothesis. This hypothesis does not claimor speculate about how much additional information isnecessary in order to significantly improve memory retrieval.

As in the other experiments, the different levels of infor-mativity in the filler phrase did not result in significantlydifferent reading times prior to the verb where retrieval ofthe filler occurs. Spillover effects were not observed in thisstudy, undoubtedly due to the relative processing ease ofthe sentences. Overall, the duplication of the facilitationin dependencies involving indefinites provides evidence,albeit limited, that the advantage of using more explicitfiller-phrases is not restricted to wh-dependencies.

DiscussionCumulatively, the three reading-time studies reflect reducedprocessing costs when more explicit fillers are used. It wasfound that which-phrases consistently led to faster process-ing times than bare-wh-phrases. Furthermore, indefinites en-coded along with multiple adjectives facilitated processing,

as compared to indefinites with no accompanying adjectives.Other experimental results extend the findings discussed hereto other kinds of syntactic constructions, such as multiplewh-questions and so-called complex noun phrase violations(Hofmeister et al., 2007).

The lack of a significant difference between the two which-phrases in experiment 2 and between the MID indefinite con-dition and the other conditions likely stems from an insuffi-cient difference in informativity. Notice that, while the dif-ference between a which-N’ phrase and who is also only oneword, the former specifies much that the latter does not: inaddition to specifying number information, the which-phrasefurther identifies the type of relevant individual or object.This goes beyond the specification of a mere attribute, as inthe difference between communist and alleged communist.

Theoretically, additional information should also inhibitsimilarity effects of the sort that Gordon et al. (2004) ob-serve. If interference effects are determined on the basis ofvarious dimensions of similarity, e.g. definiteness, syntacticcategory, thematic role assignment, etc., additional lexical-semantic features should reduce the impact of interferencefrom other candidates in memory. Indeed, the underlyingcause for this facilitation may reside in the fact that addingor linking information to a mental representation causes it tobe more distinctive from other potential competitors in mem-ory. There are, of course, other possible explanations for thisfacilitation: the additional study time provided by extra mor-phophonemic material may allow more accurate and redun-dant encoding. Also, the addition of information to the rep-resentation of a discourse entity may increase the number ofavailable retrieval paths in the sense of Bradshaw and Ander-son (1982). In fact, these factors are not mutually exclusivelyand may additively contribute to the overall memory retrievalfacilitation. In this sense, increased informativity may reflectan aggregate of dynamic factors. Future experimental workconsequently seeks to identify the source of this sentence pro-cessing facilitation.

Several points suggest why the observed data should be re-garded as a reflection of memory retrieval differences, insteadof some other processing-based factor. As pointed out for allthree experimental studies here, the effect of informativity ap-pears only at the retrieval site. While integration also occursat this point in sentence processing, there is little motivationfor assuming that the integration of longer and more informa-tive constituents is expedited. Furthermore, any explanationbased on storage conflicts with the facts: a storage-based ac-count predicts that an effect should be immediately observ-able after the wh-phrase and would have to say that storing aless informative representation is more difficult. The otherpotential candidate explanations, therefore, ultimately lackmotivation and require ad hoc or even illogical assumptions.

These results should be balanced against other clear evi-dence that suggests that the use of shorter and less informa-tive linguistic expressions is often times more efficient andpreferable in discourse and writing (Ariel, 1990, 2001). Dis-course entities are not perpetually referred to with the samedegree of detail. After establishing the identity of individualsand objects in a discourse, shorter and less precise forms areadopted. I suggest that, as with many linguistic processes,there is an on-line competition for using more or less infor-


seman/c/ discourse

syntac/c (roughly)


pointer/ anaphor

detailed structure



spell-‐out

throughout

Bal/n Merchant Li


Conclusions 1.  Psycholinguists are helping

with the overgeneraBon problem that syntac/c theories of ellipsis face.

2.  Many interes/ng findings about rapid access to informa/on in ellipsis resolu/on. But this is different than showing structure in the ellipsis site.

3.  No experiments yet resolve the differences between today’s speakers.

A linking hypothesis from syntac/c deriva/ons to real-‐/me computa/ons would be a good start.

Thanks to …

•  NSF DGE-‐0801465 IGERT training program in language science NSF BCS-‐0948554, Structure GeneraBon in Language Comprehension

•  Masaya Yoshida, MaQ Wagers, Roumi Pancheva for filling many holes in our knowledge

Annotated Bibliography of Experimental Studies on Ellipsis

Bibliography -‐ Ellipsis Arregui, A., Cliaon Jr., C. L. Frazier & K. Moulton. (2006). Processing elided VPs with flawed antecedents. Journal of Memory & Language 55:232–246. [Uses acceptability and self-‐paced reading studies to measure mismatch effects. Argues for a repair strategy to create an appropriate antecedent in cases of syntacBc mismatch]

Frazier, L. & Cliaon Jr., C. (1998). Comprehension of sluiced sentences. Language and CogniBve Processes 13: 499-‐520. [InvesBgates a variety of factors that affect the processing of sluiced sentences (e.g. focus, overt/covert antecedents) using self-‐paced reading and eye-‐tracking measures.]

Frazier, L., & Cliaon Jr., C. (2001). Parsing coordinates and ellipsis: Copy alpha. Syntax: 4(1), 1–22. [Reports a self-‐paced reading study to measure antecedent size effects. Evidence for the absence of size effects, and argues for a “Cost-‐free” copy mechanism. That study is reported in (somewhat) more detail in Frazier et al. 2000, J. Psycholing. Res.]

Frazier, L. & Cliaon Jr., C. (2005). The syntax-‐discourse divide: Processing ellipsis. Syntax: 8(1), 121–174. [Acceptability and self-‐paced reading studies tesBng for structure at ellipsis site. Argues for structure at the ellipsis site. See also Frazier & Clibon (2006)]

Bibliography -‐ Ellipsis Kaan, E., Wijnen, F., & Swaab, T. Y. (2004). Gapping: Electrophysiological evidence for immediate processing of “missing” verbs in sentence comprehension. Brain and Language: 89(3), 584–592. [ERP study invesBgaBng the Bme-‐course of gapping resoluBon. N400 effects suggest rapid integraBon of the elided verb at the gap site.]

Gregory, H. and Lappin, S. (1997). A computa/onal model of ellipsis resolu/on. In Geert-‐Jan Kruijff, Glyn V. Morrill, and Richard T. Oehrle, editors, Formal Grammar: proceedings of the conference. [Offers an implemented algorithm to capture syntacBc reconstrucBon in ellipsis]

Kim, C., Kobele, G., Runner, J. & Hale, J. (to appear) The Acceptability Cline in VP Ellipsis. Syntax. [Uses magnitude esBmaBon acceptability judgments to measure syntacBc mismatch effects. Outlines a computaBonal model in which mismatching VPE effects result from violaBng parsing heurisBcs]

Kim, C. & Runner, J. (in press). Discourse parallelism and VP ellipsis. UMass Occasional Papers in Linguis/cs: Ellipsis. [Several magnitude esBmaBon studies invesBgaBng mismatch effects in VPE]

Bibliography -‐ Ellipsis Mar/n, A. E., & McElree, B. (2008). A content-‐addressable pointer mechanism underlies comprehension of verb-‐phrase ellipsis. Journal of Memory and Language: 58, 879–906. [Several speed-‐accuracy tradeoff experiments invesBgaBng the mechanisms of antecedent access and retrieval. Argues for a pointer mechanism]

Mar/n, A. E., & McElree, B. (2009). Memory opera/ons that support language comprehension: Evidence from verb-‐phrase ellipsis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory & CogniBon: 35, 1231-‐1239. [Speed-‐accuracy tradeoff experiment invesBgaBng the mechanisms of retrieval. Measures the effects of proacBve and retroacBve interference using ellipsis construcBons]

Murphy, G. (1985). Processes of understanding anaphora. Journal of Memory and Language: 24:290–303. [Uses a “Got It” test of comprehension to measure size and distance effects. Shows that size mahers for nearby antecedents, but not distant antecedents]

Poirier, J., Wolfinger, K., Spellman, L. & Shapiro, L. (2010). The Real-‐Time Processing of Sluiced Sentences. Journal of Psycholinguis/c Research. 39:411–427. [Cross-‐modal lexical decision study invesBgaBng antecedent access in sluicing. Shows that the antecedent object NP is accessed, but not the subject NP]

Bibliography -‐ Ellipsis Shapiro, L. P., Hestvik, A., Lesan, L., & Garcia, A. R. (2003). CharBng the Bme-‐course of VP-‐ellipsis sentence comprehension: Evidence for an ini/al and independent structural analysis. Journal of Memory and Language: 49(1), 1–19. [Cross-‐modal lexical decision study invesBgaBng antecedent access in VPE. Shows that the syntacBc VP antecedent is accessed, and argues for syntacBc reconstrucBon in ellipsis. See also Shapiro & Hestvik (1995)]

Snider, N. & Runner, J. (2010). "Structural Parallelism Aids Ellipsis and Anaphor Resolu/on: Evidence from Eye Movements to Seman/c and Phonological Neighbors," 16th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, York, UK. [Slides retrieved from Snider’s home page. Examines antecedent retrieval using visual world eye-‐tracking. Argues that semanBc and phonological neighbors are acBvated as a consequence of antecedent retrieval in VPE. Argues for structure at ellipsis site]

Bibliography -‐ Ellipsis Streb, J., E. Hennighausen. and Rosler, F. (2004). Different anaphoric expressions are inves/gated by event-‐related brain poten/als, Journal of PsycholinguisBc Research: 33(3), 175-‐201. [ERP study invesBgaBng distance effects. Shows that comprehension Bmes increase with distance to the antecedent. Also, a LAN-‐like effect suggests that ellipsis is resolved during syntacBc parsing steps]

Tanenhaus, M. K., & Carlson, G. N. (1990). Comprehension of deep and surface verb phrase anaphors. Language and CogniBve Processes, 5(4), 257–280. [Uses sensicality judgments to invesBgate the role of syntacBc parallelism in the comprehension of deep and surface anaphors. Surface anaphors make sense more oben in syntacBcally parallel contexts than in non-‐parallel contexts. Parallelism does not affect judgments of deep anaphors]

Bibliography -‐ Ellipsis Masaya Yoshida, Michael Walsh Dickey & Patrick Sturt, (to appear, 2010). Predic/ve Processing of Syntac/c Structure: Sluicing and Ellipsis in Real-‐Time Sentence Processing. Language and CogniBve Processes. [Uses self-‐paced reading measures to invesBgate the predicBon of syntacBc structure in potenBally sluiced construcBons. Argues that parser chooses sluicing over other possible structures when possible. Argues for syntacBc structure at the ellipsis site]

Masaya Yoshida, Jiyeon Lee, Isaac RoQman and Michael Dickey. (to appear). Islands under the predicted structure. In J. Sprouse & N. Hornstein (eds.), edited volume on syntax and psycholinguis/cs of islands. [Self-‐paced reading study invesBgaBng the processing of potenBal sluicing/sprouBng structures. Argues that the parser posits the structure of ellipsis when an embedded wh-‐phrase is processed, based on presence/absence of a reading Bme cost associated with sprouBng.]

Other works cited Dalrymple, M., Stuart, M., Shieber, S. & Pereira, F. (1991). Ellipsis and higher-‐order unifica/on.

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Kempen, G. (2011): Nontransforma/onal reinterpreta/on of the purported psycholinguis/c evidence for gramma/cal movement opera/ons and movement traces. Presenta/on at the 85th Annual Mee/ng of the Linguis/c Society of America. Jan 6-‐9. PiQsburgh, PA.

Hardt, D. (1993). Verb Phrase ellipsis: Form, meaning, and processing. Ph.D. Disserta/on, University of Pennsylvania.

Hofmeister, P. (2007). Representa/onal Complexity and Memory Retrieval in Language Comprehension. Ph.D. Disserta/on, Stanford University.

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with lexical compe/tors. CUNY Sentence Processing Conference, 22, Davis, CA. Phillips, C., & Wagers, M. (2007). Rela/ng Structure and Time in Linguis/cs and Psycholinguis/cs.

In G. Gaskell, ed. Oxford Handbook of PsycholinguisBcs. Oxford University Press.

Phillips, C. & Lewis, S. (2010). Deriva/onal Order in Syntax: Evidence and Architectural Consequences. In C. Chesi, ed. DirecBons in DerivaBons. Elsevier.

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Swinney, D., Ford, M., Frauenfelder, U., & Bresnah, J. (1988). On the temporal course of gap-‐filling and antecedent assignment during sentence comprehension. In B. Grosz, R. Kaplan. M. Macken. & 1. Sag, eds. Language structure and processing. Stanford, CA: CSLI.

Tanenhaus, M.K., Carlson, G. & Seidenberg, M.S. (1985). Do listeners compute linguis/c representa/ons? In D. Dowty, L. Kartunnen & A. Zwicky, eds., Natural Language Parsing: Psychological, ComputaBonal, and TheoreBcal PerspecBves. Cambridge University Press.

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Van Gompel, R.P.G., & Majid, A. (2004). Antecedent frequency effects during the processing of pronouns. CogniBon: 90: 255-‐264.

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