@article{SalzmannWierzbaGeorgi2023,
  author    = {Salzmann, Martin and Wierzba, Marta and Georgi, Doreen},
  title     = {Condition C in German A'-movement},
  series = {Journal of linguistics : JL},
  volume    = {59},
  journal   = {Journal of linguistics : JL},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press},
  address   = {London [u.a.]},
  issn      = {0022-2267},
  doi       = {10.1017/S0022226722000214},
  pages     = {577 -- 622},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {In recent experimental work, arguments for or against Condition C reconstruction in A'-movement have been based on low/high availability of coreference in sentences with and without A'-movement. We argue that this reasoning is problematic: It involves arbitrary thresholds, and the results are potentially confounded by the different surface orders of the compared structures and non-syntactic factors. We present three experiments with designs that do not require defining thresholds of 'low' or 'high' coreference values. Instead, we focus on grammatical contrasts (wh-movement vs. relativization, subject vs. object wh-movement) and aim to identify and reduce confounds. The results show that reconstruction for A'-movement of DPs is not very robust in German, contra previous findings. Our results are compatible with the view that the surface order and non-syntactic factors (e.g. plausibility, referential accessibility of an R-expression) heavily influence coreference possibilities. Thus, the data argue against a theory that includes both reconstruction and a hard Condition C constraint. There is a residual contrast between sentences with subject/object movement, which is compatible with an account without reconstruction (and an additional non-syntactic factor) or an account with reconstruction (and a soft Condition C constraint).},
  language  = {en}
}