Dr. Maria Polinsky
In this talk, I examine the interaction between grammatical and processing factors that influence the construction of referential and syntactic dependencies in rigidly head-final languages. Using new experimental data from Korean (Kwon 2008, Kwon et al. 2007, 2008) and Japanese (Ueno & Polinsky 2008, Choi & Fukuda 2007), I suggest that these languages (i) employ systematic strategies to minimize processing domains, (ii) rely on processing strategies other than active search, and (iii) employ referential in environments where more familiar languages may use syntactic dependencies. These results suggest a trade-off between functionally relevant and functionally irrelevant components of grammar; components of Universal Grammar that are functionally ineffective can be turned off, while the functionally expedient ones can be put to greater use in order to compensate for the ones absent.
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