@article {6668,
	title = {Extraction from subjects: Differences in acceptability depend on the discourse function of the construction},
	journal = {Cognition},
	year = {2020},
	abstract = {<p>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 \&quot;subject island\&quot; 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 \&amp; Sag, 2000; Goldberg, 2006; Sag, 2010), with their own discourse functions, one can explain different extraction patterns depending on the construction.</p>
},
	doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104293},
	author = {Anne Abeill{\'e} and Barbara Hemforth and Winckel, Elodie and Gibson, Edward}
}
@article {5547,
	title = {Don{\textquoteright}t underestimate the benefits of being misunderstood},
	journal = {Psychological Science},
	year = {2017},
	abstract = {<p>Being a non-native speaker of a language poses challenges. Individuals often feel embarrassed by the errors they make when talking in their second language (L2). However, here we report an advantage of being an L2 speaker: native speakers give foreign-accented speakers the benefit of the doubt when interpreting their utterances, such that apparently implausible utterances delivered in a foreign accent are more likely to be interpreted in a plausible way. Across three replicated experiments, we demonstrate that native English speakers are more likely to interpret implausible utterances such as \&ldquo;the mother gave the candle the daughter\&rdquo; as similar plausible utterances (\&ldquo;the mother gave the candle to the daughter\&rdquo;) when those utterances are produced with a foreign accent. This result follows from the general model of language interpretation in a noisy channel (Gibson et al., 2013), under the hypothesis that listeners assume a higher error rate in foreign-accented speech.</p>
},
	url = {http://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/5IResZSFhWjyHkAk4a8n/full},
	author = {Gibson, Edward and Tana, Caitlin and Futrella, Richard and Mahowalda, Kyle and Lars Konieczny and Barbara Hemforth and Fedorenko, Evelina}
}
