Experiments in Focus by Sam Featherston Robin Hörnig Sophie von Wietersheim Susanne Winkler

Author:Sam Featherston, Robin Hörnig, Sophie von Wietersheim, Susanne Winkler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2019-10-12T13:43:26.427000+00:00

SVO OVS

Null context 5.78 (1.44)

656 (99) 5.61 (1.46)

647 (132)

Whole-part context 5.93 (1.59)

652 (171) 6.33 (1.18)

599 (86)

While SVO does not show any major effect of context, OVS reacts to the presence of the whole-part licensing context quite dramatically: ratings go up to a higher level than in any of the unmarked conditions, and reading times go down. ­Statistically, this amounts to an interaction of the factors WORD ORDER and CONTEXT, and—unsurprisingly—to a main effect of CONTEXT, but not to a main effect of WORD ORDER.

Taking these findings for German OVS structures as a backdrop, we wanted to know whether topicalization in English is susceptible to strong contextual licensing at all; and if so, whether it is susceptible to the same extent as German topicalization.

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