@conference {6679, title = {The acceptability of extractions from subjects depends on the discourse status of the subject}, year = {2020}, month = {09/2020}, address = {Postdam (Virtual Conference)}, url = {https://amlap2020.github.io/a/239.pdf}, author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie and Gibson, Edward} } @article {6668, title = {Extraction from subjects: Differences in acceptability depend on the discourse function of the construction}, journal = {Cognition}, year = {2020}, abstract = {

In order to explain the unacceptability of certain long-distance dependencies - termed syntactic islands by Ross (1967) - syntacticians proposed constraints on long-distance dependencies which are universal and purely syntactic and thus not dependent on the meaning of the construction (Chomsky, 1977; Chomsky, 1995 a.o.). This predicts that these constraints should hold across constructions and languages. In this paper, we investigate the \"subject island\" constraint across constructions in English and French, a constraint that blocks extraction out of subjects. In particular, we compare extraction out of nominal subjects with extraction out of nominal objects, in relative clauses and wh-questions, using similar materials across constructions and languages. Contrary to the syntactic accounts, we find that unacceptable extractions from subjects involve (a) extraction in wh-questions (in both languages); or (b) preposition stranding (in English). But the extraction of a whole prepositional phrase from subjects in a relative clause, in both languages, is as good or better than a similar extraction from objects. Following Erteschik-Shir (1973) and Kuno (1987) among others, we propose a theory that takes into account the discourse status of the extracted element in the construction at hand: the extracted element is a focus (corresponding to new information) in wh-questions, but not in relative clauses. The focus status conflicts with the non-focal status of a subject (usually given or discourse-old). These results suggest that most previous discussions of islands may rely on the wrong premise that all extraction types behave alike. Once different extraction types are recognized as different constructions (Croft, 2001; Ginzburg \& Sag, 2000; Goldberg, 2006; Sag, 2010), with their own discourse functions, one can explain different extraction patterns depending on the construction.

}, doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104293}, author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie and Gibson, Edward} } @conference {6670, title = {The subject island as a case of focus-background conflict}, year = {2020}, month = {02/2020}, address = {T{\"u}bingen}, author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie and Gibson, Edward} } @conference {6675, title = {Subject island: PP extraction depends on the construction}, year = {2020}, month = {03/2020}, address = {Amherst (MA) (Virtual Conference)}, url = {https://osf.io/ndtvw/}, author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie and Gibson, Edward} } @conference {6672, title = {Subject NP island? A case of focus-background conflict. }, year = {2020}, month = {04/2020}, address = {MIT (Virtual Workshop)}, author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie and Gibson, Edward} } @inproceedings {6782, title = {Extraction out of subject phrases in French: experimental evidence}, year = {2019}, month = {2019}, pages = {68-74}, edition = {Association for Computational Linguistics}, url = {https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W19-7908}, author = {Winckel, Elodie and Anne Abeill{\'e}} } @conference {6410, title = {Subject-island constraint? The discourse function of the construction matters}, year = {2019}, month = {09/2019}, address = {Moscou, Russie}, author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie and Gibson, Edward} } @conference {5847, title = {Subject island? (Counter)evidence from French dont-relative clauses}, year = {2017}, month = {03/2017}, abstract = {

Whether island constraints (Ross 1967) are due to structural (Chomsky 2008, Sprouse et al. 2015, etc.) or cognitive constraints (Klunder 1992, Hofmeister et al. 2013, etc.) is still an open debate. Subject islands have been shown to vary across languages (Rizzi 1990) and across constructions (Sprouse et al. 2015). In French, dont relative clauses (DRC) (Godard 1992) exhibit \‘de\’ (\‘of which\’) complement extraction for verbal (1a), object noun (1b) or subject noun (1c) complements. Mainstream generative approaches predict (1a) to be easier than (1b), and (1b) than (1c). Processing approaches such as DLT (Gibson, 2000) predict the reverse: (1c) should be easier than (1a), and (1a) than (1b), in terms of linear distance between dont and the gap. Furthermore, DLT predicts (2a), with a 1st person subject \‘je\’, to be easier than (1a) and (2b) than (1b).

  1. a. from VP une ville dont mes amis [parlent souvent _ ] (a town of-which my friends often talk )\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ 

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \  b. from object NP une ville dont mes amis appr\écient [les commer\çants _ ] (a town of-which my friends like the \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \  merchants)

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \  c. from subject NP une ville dont [les commer\çants _ ] vendent de l\’huile (a town of-which the merchants sell oil)

  1. a. from VP une ville dont je [parle souvent _ ] (a town of-which I talk often)

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \  b. from object NP une ville dont j\’appr\écie [les commer\çants _ ].

Corpus studies Using the written corpus French Treebank (Abeill\é et al, 2003), we found an overwhelming frequency of extraction out of NP subject (56,5\%) over verb extraction (19\%) and extraction out of NP object (12,5\%) in dont relative clauses. The spoken corpus CFPP2000 (Branca-Rosoff et al. 2012) confirms a high frequency of subject extraction (17,8\% of all dont; 63\% of all extractions out of NP). These subjects are not internal objects: looking at verbs for DRC with extraction out of subject, 67\% of the verbs in the spoken corpus and 47\% in the written corpus are transitive (unergative). Furthermore, almost all extractions out of object NP involve a pronominal subject. Linear mixed models also show that dont significantly tends to correspond to a verb complement with a pronominal subject rather than with a nominal subject (z=7,7; p\<.001).

Experiment 1 In an acceptability judgement task with 57 participants, we tested extraction out of subject and object NPs with pronominal and nominal subjects for the latter (1b/2b), adding control sentences with coordination (3x2 conditions; 30 items). The participants were asked to rate the sentences on a scale from 1 (bad) to 10 (good).

Extraction out of the subject was judged significantly better than extraction out of the object with a nominal subject NP (1b vs. 1c; p\<.05). Extraction out of object NP yielded a significant preference for pronominal over nominal subjects (1b vs. 2b; p\<.05). This confirms the results of our corpus studies.

Experiment 2 We ran an Eye-Tracking experiment with the same materials and 31 native French speakers. Total reading times of the verb region confirmed our previous results (controlling for verb length and frequency).

Conclusion The results of the two corpus studies and two experiments show that there is no extra cost of extracting out of a subject NP in DRC. This contradicts structural approaches to subject islands and confirm DLT predictions. The extra cost of a lexical subject when extracting out of an object NP (new discourse referent between dont and the gap) is confirmed as well.

Table 1: Examples of the materials for Experiment 1 and 2

A /\  Extraction from subject NP

They work in a practice of-which the neatness intimidates my parents every time.

Elles travaillent dans un cabinet dont la propret\é intimide mes parents \à chaque fois.

B /\  Extraction from object NP with a pronominal subject

They work in a practice of-which we admire the neatness every time.

Elles travaillent dans un cabinet dont nous admirons la propret\é \à chaque fois.

C / Extraction from object NP with a nominal subject

They work in a practice of-which my parents admire the neatness every time.

Elles travaillent dans un cabinet dont mes parents admirent la propret\é \à chaque fois.

D /\  Control sentence for A

They work in a practice and its neatness intimidates my parents every time.

Elles travaillent dans un cabinet et sa propret\é intimide mes parents \à chaque fois.

E /\  Control sentence for B

They work in a practice and we admire its neatness every time.

Elles travaillent dans un cabinet et nous admirons sa propret\é \à chaque fois.

F / Control sentence for C

They work in a practice and my parents admire its neatness every time.

Elles travaillent dans un cabinet et mes parents admirent sa propret\é \à chaque fois.
}, author = {Winckel, Elodie and Barbara Hemforth and Anne Abeill{\'e}} } @inproceedings {4714, title = {Les relatives en dont du fran{\c c}ais : {\'e}tudes empiriques}, volume = {27}, year = {2016}, abstract = {

R\ésum\é

Les relatives en\ dont\ ont fait l\’objet de plusieurs \études th\éoriques (Godard 1988) mais ont moins \ét\é \étudi\ées d\’un point de vue empirique (Gapany 2004). C. Blanche-Benveniste (1995) notait leur raret\é dans des corpus oraux, o\ù ils sont principalement compl\éments de certains verbes. Notre objectif est d\’observer le comportement des relatives en\ dont\ en fran\çais d\’un point de vue empirique. Pour ce faire, nous avons en premier lieu \étudi\é les relatives dans deux corpus, le French Treebank (corpus \écrit) et le Corpus de Fran\çais Parl\é Parisien des ann\ées 2000 (corpus oral). Ces \études nous ont permis de confirmer en partie les travaux de C. Blanche-Benveniste (1995) : l\’usage de\ dont\ en fran\çais \écrit diff\ère effectivement de son usage en fran\çais oral, mais\ dont\ est loin d\’\être r\éserv\é \à l\’oral \à quelques expressions fig\ées. Nous avons pu aussi confirmer l\’\étude de Godard (1980) : les dont compl\ément de nom (extractions hors de SN) ne sont pas marginaux, et les plus frequents sont ceux o\ù le nom est sujet, ce qui consid\ér\é comme agrammatical par certaines th\éories linguistiques comme agrammaticales. De ce point de vue, les corpus nous ont permis de v\érifier que les extractions hors du SN sujet ne posent pas de probl\èmes en fran\çais. Leur usage est m\ême plut\ôt r\épandu, et inclut les extractions hors de \« vrais sujets \» de verbes transitifs, contrairement aux pr\édictions des hypoth\èses de la grammaire g\én\érative. En grammaire g\én\érative en effet, les relatives comme les autres structures \à extraction sont soumises \à des contraintes d\’\îles (Ross 1957). Selon la contrainte de l\’\îlot nominal, il est plus difficile d\’extraire un compl\ément de nom qu\’un compl\ément de verbe. La contrainte de l\’\îlot sujet exclut quant \à elle l\’extraction du compl\ément du sujet, qui n\’est possible que lorsque le sujet est deriv\é (passif, moyen\…) ou argument interne (Chomsky 2008). Or, nous constatons que les extractions hors de SN sujet sont plus fr\équentes dans les corpus que les extractions hors de SN objet (en ce qui concerne les relatives en\ dont). Ce m\ême fait est un argument en faveur de la th\éorie de la localit\é de Gibson, qui pr\évoit que l\’extraction hors de SN sujet est non seulement bien form\ée mais moins co\ûteuse que celle hors de SN objet. D\’autres observations sur les relatives en\ dont\ des deux corpus semblent corroborer cette th\éorie, comme par exemple la plus grande fr\équence des sujets pronominaux ou invers\és dans les relatives en\ dont\ dans lesquelles\ dont\ correspond \à un compl\ément du verbe. Dans un deuxi\ème temps, nous avons men\é une \étude exp\érimentale de jugement d\’acceptabilit\é afin de comparer les jugements de locuteurs natifs face \à des relatives en\ dont\ correspondant \à une extraction hors du SN sujet d\’une part et \à une extraction hors de SN objet d\’autre part (la forme du sujet dans ces derni\ères, qui joue un r\ôle dans la th\éorie de la localit\é de Gibson, a \ét\é test\ée \également). Les r\ésultats de cette exp\érience sont eux aussi en accord avec les pr\évisions de la th\éorie de la localit\é de Gibson, les jugements \étant significativement sup\érieurs pour les extractions hors de SN sujet par rapport aux extractions hors de SN objet.

Abstract

French relative clauses introduced by\ dont\ (from now on:\ dont-RC) have been well investigated on the theoretical level (Godard 1988) but have not lead to many empirical studies (Gapany 2004). Blanche-Benveniste (1995) observed that\ dont-RC are not very common in spoken French and restricted to the extraction of a few verb complements. The aim of this article is to describe\ dont-RC on the basis of three empirical studies: two corpus studies and one online experimental study. The corpus studies have been conducted on a written corpus (French Treebank) and on a spoken corpus (Corpus de Fran\çais Parl\é Parisien des ann\ées 2000). The results confirm partly Blanche-Benveniste\’s claim: the written usage of\ dont-RC differs from its spoken use, but it is not restricted in the later to specific idioms. Both corpora corroborate the work of Godard (1980) : dont is widely used as a complement on noun, extractions out of NP are not marginal, not even out of subject NP which are considered non-grammatical by some linguistic theories. The corpus studies show that this kind of extraction is widely-used in French and even concern \“real subjects\” of transitive verbs, which goes against the prediction made by many generative theories. In generative grammar, relative clauses (as well as any extraction) are subject to island constraints (Ross 1957). The nominal island constraint predicts that the extraction of a noun complement should be harder than the extraction of a verb complement. The subject island constraint rules out extractions out of subject NPs, which is claimed to be only acceptable when the subject NP is an underlying object (Chomsky 2008). However, in our corpora,\ dont-RC extractions out of NP subject are more frequent than extractions out of NP object. This observation confirms Gibson\’s Dependency Locality Theory (DLT), which predicts that the extraction from subject NP should have less cognitive costs than the extraction from object NP. Other observations corroborate this theory as well: for example, that dont-RC corresponding to the extraction of the complement of a verb favor pronominal or inverted subjects. Our experimental study is an online acceptability task. Its aim is to compare the judgments from native speakers related to dont-RC implying an extraction out of subject NP and object NP (the kind of subject involved in the later case has an impact of the DLT\’s predictions and have been tested as well). The results confirm again the predictions from the DLT: the judgments for the extraction out of subject NPs are significantly higher than for the extraction out of object NPs.

}, doi = { http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20162714011}, author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie} }