LingLunch : Dario Paape

Dario Paape
Ellipsis processing with garden-path antecedents in German and French

In a self-paced reading study on German sluicing (Paape, 2015a), we found that ellipsis was processed faster if the antecedent had been syntactically reanalyzed. However, we were unable to reproduce this finding in a follow-up experiment which also used self-paced reading (Paape, 2015b). Instead, results suggested that participants had engaged in 'good-enough' processing (e.g. Ferreira, 2003). To investigate further, we conducted an eye-tracking study in French, using three types of temporary ambiguities. Two of the garden-path structures failed to produce any effect at the ellipsis site. Results for the third construction indicate that, like the German subjects of Paape (2015b), French participants engaged in superficial processing, failing to resolve the garden path and thus showing processing difficulty at the ellipsis site.