Investigating the tense contrast in parasitic gap constructions : Experimental data from different varieties of French and Spanish
Schoenmakers, Gert-Jan (Utrecht University)
Rojas-Berscia, Luis Miguel (Radboud University Nijmegen)

Título variante:	Investigating the tense contrast in parasitic gap constructions
Fecha:	2026
Resumen:	It has often been observed that parasitic gaps fare better in untensed adjunct clauses than in tensed ones. García Mayo & Kempchinsky (1994) argue that this contrast emerges in Romance languages, but not in English. We present an acceptability judgment experiment to investigate the tense effect in different varieties of French and Spanish, and American English. While the main effects of tense and parasitic gaps in the Romance languages were significant, we did not find super-additivity. We did find super-additivity in the English data, although the experimental design prevents us from comparing the datasets. Our results do not support García Mayo & Kempchinsky's analysis. Furthermore, we compare our results with earlier experiments. We tested different language varieties for the sake of representation, but also because language contact with Germanic languages or Quechuan languages and Shawi may lead to transfer effects, reducing participants' sensitivity to the tense contrast compared to Metropolitan French and European Spanish. The patterns in the Spanish datasets corroborate this hypothesis. Finally, we find variation between the adjunct types we tested in the Romance subexperiments (after-, before-, and without-clauses). Our findings thus provide an empirical basis for future research into the phenomenon.
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Materia:	Parasitic gaps ; Tense ; Adjuncts ; Experimental syntax ; Transfer ; Language contact
Publicado en:	Isogloss, Vol. 12, Num. 2 (2026) , p. 1-31 (Articles) , ISSN 2385-4138

Adreça original: https://revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/article/view/v12-n2-schoenmakers-rojasberscia
DOI: 10.5565/rev/isogloss.536

31 p, 840.1 KB

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