TY - JOUR A1 - Simik, Radek A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - EXPRESSION OF INFORMATION STRUCTURE IN WEST SLAVIC: MODELING THE IMPACT OF PROSODIC AND WORD-ORDER FACTORS JF - Language : journal of the Linguistic Society of America N2 - The received wisdom is that word-order alternations in Slavic languages arise as a direct consequence of word-order-related information-structure constraints such as ‘Place given expressions before new ones’. In this article, we compare the word-order hypothesis with a competing one, according to which word-order alternations arise as a consequence of a prosodic constraint: ‘Avoid stress on given expressions’. Based on novel experimental and modeling data, we conclude that the prosodic hypothesis is more adequate than the word-order hypothesis. Yet we also show that combining the strengths of both hypotheses provides the best fit for the data. Methodologically, our article is based on gradient acceptability judgments and multiple regression, which allows us to evaluate whether violations of generalizations like ‘Given precedes new’ or ‘Given lacks stress’ lead to a consistent decrease in acceptability and to quantify the size of their respective effects. Focusing on the empirical adequacy of such generalizations rather than on specific theoretical implementations also makes it possible to bridge the gap between different linguistic traditions and to directly compare predictions emerging from formal and functional approaches. KW - information structure KW - givenness KW - word order KW - prosody KW - acceptability-judgment experiments KW - modeling KW - multiple regression KW - Slavic Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2017.0040 SN - 0097-8507 SN - 1535-0665 VL - 93 SP - 671 EP - 709 PB - Linguistic Society of America CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grubic, Mira A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - The German additive particle noch BT - testing the role of topic situations JF - Glossa : a journal of general linguistics N2 - The particle noch (‘still’) can have an additive reading similar to auch (‘also’). We argue that both particles indicate that a previously partially answered QUD is re-opened to add a further answer. The particles differ in that the QUD, in the case of auch, can be re-opened with respect to the same topic situation, whereas noch indicates that the QUD is re-opened with respect to a new topic situation. This account predicts a difference in the accommodation behavior of the two particles. We present an experiment whose results are in line with this prediction. KW - additive particles KW - noch KW - auch KW - German KW - topic situation KW - semantics KW - experiments Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1275 SN - 2397-1835 VL - 6 IS - 1 PB - Ubiquity Press CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Simik, Radek A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - The role of givenness, presupposition, and prosody in Czech word order: An experimental study JF - Semantics and pragmatics KW - givenness KW - presupposition KW - prosody KW - Czech KW - scrambling KW - acceptability judgments KW - experiments Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.8.3 SN - 1937-8912 VL - 8 PB - Linguistic Society of America CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grubic, Mira A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - Presupposition Accommodation of the German Additive Particle auch (= “too”) JF - Frontiers in Communication N2 - Presupposition triggers differ with respect to whether their presupposition is easily accommodatable. The presupposition of focus-sensitive additive particles like also or too is often classified as hard to accommodate, i.e., these triggers are infelicitous if their presupposition is not entailed by the immediate linguistic or non-linguistic context. We tested two competing accounts for the German additive particle auch concerning this requirement: First, that it requires a focus alternative to the whole proposition to be salient, and second, that it merely requires an alternative to the focused constituent (e.g., an individual) to be salient. We conducted two experiments involving felicity judgments as well as questions asking for the truth of the presupposition to be accommodated. Our results suggest that the latter account is too weak: mere previous mention of a potential alternative to the focused constituent is not enough to license the use of auch. However, our results also suggest that the former account is too strong: when an alternative of the focused constituent is prementioned and certain other accommodation-enhancing factors are present, the context does not have to entail the presupposed proposition. We tested the following two potentially accommodation-enhancing factors: First, whether the discourse can be construed to be from the perspective of the individual that the presupposition is about, and second, whether the presupposition is needed to establish coherence between the host sentence of the additive particle and the preceding context. The factor coherence was found to play a significant role. Our results thus corroborate the results of other researchers showing that discourse participants go to great lengths in order to identify a potential presupposition to accommodate, and we contribute to these results by showing that coherence is one of the factors that enhance accommodation. KW - alternatives KW - additive particles KW - presupposition KW - anaphoricity KW - accommodation KW - experimental data KW - German Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00015 SN - 2297-900X VL - 4 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - 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 - Wierzba, Marta A1 - Fanselow, Gisbert T1 - Factors influencing the acceptability of object fronting in German JF - The journal of comparative Germanic linguistics N2 - In this paper, we address some controversially debated empirical questions concerning object fronting in German by a series of acceptability rating studies. We investigated three kinds of factors: (i) properties of the subject (given/new, pronoun/full DP), (ii) emphasis, (iii) register. The first factor is predicted to play a crucial role by models in which object fronting possibilities are limited by prosodic properties. Two experiments provide converging evidence for a systematic effect of this factor: we find that the relative acceptability of object fronting across subjects that require an accent (new DPs) is lower than across deaccentable subjects (pronouns and given DPs). Other models predict object fronting across full phrases (but not across pronouns) to be limited to an emphatic interpretation. This prediction is also borne out, suggesting that both types of models capture an empirically valid generalization and can be seen as complementing each other rather than competing with each other. Finally, we find support for the view that informal register facilitates object fronting. In sum, our experiments contribute to clarifying the empirical basis concerning a phenomenon influenced by a range of interacting factors. This, in turn, informs theoretical approaches to the prefield position and helps to identify factors that need to be carefully controlled in this field of research. KW - German KW - Object fronting KW - Prefield KW - Givenness KW - Emphasis KW - Register KW - Experiments KW - Acceptability Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-020-09113-1 SN - 1383-4924 SN - 1572-8552 VL - 23 IS - 1 SP - 77 EP - 124 PB - Springer CY - New York ER -