Object fronting

1
Object fronting

• Helen de Hoop
• based on joint work with
• Monique Lamers

2
Object fronting

• Object fronting in Dutch
• Dat weet ik zeker case
• that know I sure
• Het lijk heeft Jan verstopt animacy
• the corpse has Jan hidden
• Jan sloeg Piet word order
• Jan hit Piet

3
Overview

• Distinguishability
• Incremental optimization of interpretation
• Evidence from ERPs
• Three types of verbs
• Evidence from rating studies
• Evidence from a production study
• A bidirectional perspective
• Conclusion

4
Distinguishability

• Case can help to identify the first NP as the
  object
• Latin
• puer-um magister laudat
• boyACC teacher praises
• The teacher praises the boy.

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Distinguishability

• ACCUSATIVE part 2

Prediction There is also a part 1
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Distinguishability

• part 2 ? part 1
• ACC ? subject
• Within the domain of language comprehension, it
  is well established that syntactic dependencies
  give rise to predictive parsing (Gibson, 1998).
  For example, the processing of an unambiguously
  identifiable object will give rise to the
  prediction of a subject.

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Distinguishability

Den Zaun habe ich zerbrochen the fenceACC have
INOM broken The fence, I broke.
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Distinguishability

• Den Zaun habe ich zerbrochen
• Distinguishability of subject and object
• Case
• Agreement
• Prominence (animacy)
• Selection
• Precedence (word order)

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Distinguishability

Die Studentin hat die Professorin geschlagen The
student hit the professor.
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Distinguishability

• Die Studentin hat die Professorin geschlagen
• Distinguishability of subject and object
• Case
• Agreement
• Prominence (animacy)
• Selection
• Precedence (word order)

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Distinguishability
The holiday pleased the man The man liked the
holiday

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Distinguishability

The holiday pleased the man

• Distinguishability of subject and object
• Case
• Agreement
• Prominence (animacy)
• Selection
• Precedence (word order)

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Distinguishability

• Case the subject is in the nominative case, the
  object in the accusative
• Agreement the subject agrees with the verb
• Prominence (animacy) the subject outranks the
  object in animacy
• Selection Fit the selection restrictions of the
  verb.
• Precedence (word order) the subject linearly
  precedes the object

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Determining the ranking
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Determining the ranking
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Determining the ranking
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Determining the ranking
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Determining the ranking
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Determining the ranking
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The ranking of the constraints

• Case, Agreement
• Selection
• Precedence
• Prominence

21
Incremental optimization

• During sentence processing the optimal
  interpretation is being built up incrementally
  (word-by-word or constituent-by-constituent)
• System of ranked constraints

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Incremental optimization

• Optimal interpretation at time t
• Jumping from one interpretation to the other
• ERP studies
• Lamers 2001

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Incremental optimization
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Incremental optimization
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Incremental optimization
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Incremental optimization
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Incremental optimization
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Incremental optimization
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Incremental optimization
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Evidence from ERPs
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Evidence from ERPs
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Evidence from ERPs
33
case
animacy
De oude vrouw/Het oude park verzorgde hij
De oude vrouw in de straat verzorgde hem/hij
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Evidence from ERPs

• De oude vrouw verzorgde hem
• Het oude park verzorgde hij
• De oude vrouw verzorgde hij
• (2) gets an OI reading at the verb (SELECTION)
• (3) gets an OI reading at the pronoun (CASE)
• Lamers (2001) reports similar ERP effects at the
  verb in (2) and at the pronoun in (3)

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Evidence from ERPs

• De oude vrouw verzorgde hem
• Het oude park verzorgde hij
• De oude vrouw verzorgde hij
• Lamers (2001) reports similar ERP effects at the
  verb in (2) and at the pronoun in (3)
• At the verb in (2) and at the pronoun in (3)
  there is a jump from an SI to an OI reading
  (thereby violating PRECEDENCE)

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Evidence from ERPs

• Identical ERP effects correspond to identical
  patterns of constraint violations

37
Three types of verbs

• agentive experiencer-theme verbs
• Call (xAgent, yTheme)
• The secretary called the customer
• causative psych/theme-experiencer verbs
• Frighten (xTheme/Stim, yExp)
• The secretary frightened us.
• unaccusative psych verbs
• Please (xTheme, yExp)
• The secretary pleased us.

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Three types of verbs

• agentive experiencer-theme verbs
• Dat de toerist de stad zeer bewonderde ltSIgt
• that the tourist the city a-lot admired
• Dat de stad de toerist zeer bewonderde ltOIgt
• that the city the tourist a-lot admired

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Three types of verbs

• causative psych verbs
• Dat de stad de toerist zeer deprimeerde ltSIgt
• that the city the tourist a-lot depressed
• Dat de toerist de stad zeer deprimeerde ltOIgt
• that the tourist the city a-lot depressed

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Three types of verbs

• unaccusative psych verbs
• Dat de stad de toerist zeer beviel ltSIgt
• that the city the tourist a-lot pleased
• Dat de toerist de stad zeer beviel ltOIgt
• that the tourist the city a-lot pleased

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Evidence from rating studies

Black Lamers (2001) Orange Lamers (2005)
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Evidence from rating studies

• General preference for subject-initial sentences
• Strongest SI preference for agentive verbs
• Highest rating of OI sentences for unaccusative
  psych verbs

43
Evidence from rating studies

• Where do these differences between the three
  types of verbs come from?
• Strongest SI preference for agentive verbs
• Subject first
• Animate first

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Evidence from rating studies

• Psych verbs have an animate object
• Therefore, only one of the two constraints can be
  satisfied
• Subject first ? SI
• Animate first ? OI

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Three types of verbs

• But then, what is the difference between
  unaccusative and psych verbs?
• Highest rating of OI sentences for unaccusative
  psych verbs
• Production experiment (Hofmans Lamers 2006)

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A production study

• 30 normal participants (6 Broca aphasics)
• 12 sets of three verbs with an animate
  inanimate NPs (2 combinations for each set of
  verbs)
• three conditions for each verb
• -no first NP given
• -animate first
• -inanimate first

depress student exam
47

ANIMATE FIRST
SUBJECT FIRST
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A production study

• Subject First
• Animate First
• Conflict between these two results in a higher
  occurrence of passive constructions with
  causative psych verbs satisfying both
  constraints, and a higher occurrence of OI
  constructions satisfying Animate First with
  unaccusative psych verbs.

49
A bidirectional perspective
But then, what is the difference between
unaccusative and psych verbs?

• Difference in rating can be explained in a
  bidirectional approach in which the hearer takes
  the speakers perspective into account.

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A bidirectional perspective

• When a speaker wants to start with the animate
  argument, she can use a passive construction in
  case of a causative psych verb (thereby
  satisfying Subject First as well), but not in
  case of an unaccusative psych verb. Thus, for
  unaccusative psych verbs, only an OI sentence
  leads to satisfaction of Animate First.

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Conclusions

• Subject First is more important than Animate
  First.
• If a speaker wants to satisfy Subject First as
  well as Animate First, then a conflict may arise
  in the case of psych verbs (that have animate
  objects).
• To solve the conflict, a passive construction may
  be used (which implies satisfaction of both
  constraints).
• But if passive formation is not possible
  (unaccusative psych verbs), then object fronting
  is the only way to satisfy Animate First.
• This explains the increase of both the rating and
  the production of object-initial sentences in the
  case of unaccusative psych verbs.

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Case cross-linguistically Animacywww.ru.nl/pion
ier/