TY - JOUR A1 - Salzmann, Martin A1 - Wierzba, Marta A1 - Georgi, Doreen T1 - Condition C in German A'-movement BT - tackling challenges in experimental research on reconstruction JF - Journal of linguistics : JL N2 - 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). KW - A'-movement KW - binding KW - Condition C KW - experimental syntax KW - German KW - reconstruction KW - relative clauses KW - wh-questions Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226722000214 SN - 0022-2267 SN - 1469-7742 VL - 59 IS - 3 SP - 577 EP - 622 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - London [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Drummer, Janna-Deborah A1 - Felser, Claudia T1 - Cataphoric pronoun resolution in native and non-native sentence comprehension JF - Journal of memory and language N2 - Encountering a cataphoric pronoun triggers a search for a suitable referent. Previous research indicates that this search is constrained by binding Condition C, which prohibits coreference between a cataphoric pronoun and a referential expression within its c-command domain. We report the results from a series of eye-movement monitoring and questionnaire experiments investigating cataphoric pronoun resolution in German. Given earlier findings suggesting that the application of structure-sensitive constraints on reference resolution may be delayed in non-native language processing, we tested both native and proficient non-native speakers of German. Our results show that cataphoric pronouns trigger an active search in both native and non-native comprehenders. Whilst both participant groups demonstrated awareness of Condition C in an offline task, we found Condition C effects to be restricted to later processing measures during online reading. This indicates that during natural reading, Condition C applies as a relatively late filter on potential coreference assignments. KW - Cataphoric pronouns KW - Reference resolution KW - Condition C KW - Eye-movement monitoring KW - Bilingual processing KW - German Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2018.04.001 SN - 0749-596X SN - 1096-0821 VL - 101 SP - 97 EP - 113 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER -