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12 - Constituent Order and Acceptability

from Part II - Experimental Studies of Specific Phenomena

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2021

By
Thomas Weskott
Edited by
Grant Goodall
Grant Goodall
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
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Summary

The relation between the constituent order of a sentence and its acceptability score is a complex one. This is due to the fact that both the crucial independent variable, constituent order, and the dependent one, acceptability judgments, are inherently multifactorial. This contribution seeks to disentangle this relation by (i) enumerating the factors that contribute to the ordering of constituents in non-canonical orders, i.e. orders that deviate from the unmarked order of a given language, (ii) giving an explanation of how these factors interact in terms of the notion of contextual licensing, and (iii) providing a survey of the experimental evidence accrued so far both in favor of and against such an explanation for a number of different constructions. An outlook on possibilities for further research concludes the chapter.

Keywords

constituent ordermarkednesscontextual licensinginformation structure
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax , pp. 315 - 340
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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