Matt Wagers - (Re-)encoding interference

As part of the Department of Linguistics guest speaker serries, please welcome Prof. Matt Wagers (University of California, Santa Cruz) who will be giving a talk on (Re-)encoding interference.

Abstract: 

When do two DPs interact in sentence processing, and how does their similarity relationship affect that interaction?

My first case study in this talk will be the processing of relative clauses (RCs) in Santiago Laxopa Zapotec (SLZ), an Oto-Manguean language of Oaxaca. SLZ is a verb-initial language whose ambiguous RCs consist of N - V - N sequences. Resumptive pronouns (RPs) can be inserted to disambiguate, either in subject, or object position; but object RPs sometimes appear to be quite difficult to comprehend. In a series of judgment and visual-world eye-tracking experiments, we find that SLZ -- like many languages -- shows a version of the Subject Advantage. However, it is surprisingly weak and defeasible. We find that the similarity of the two DPs, in animacy, is a principal determinant of difficulty and of the ultimate interpretation. We take this as evidence of encoding interference, a somewhat unexpected finding given the positional distinctness of the two nouns. We link the existence of encoding interference, instead, to their interaction via reanalysis. The results from SLZ will be compared to similar, recent findings in Hebrew, another language with optional object RPs; and to English, where the downstream effects of reanalysis indicate that encoding interference is often destructive, but appears to sometimes be constructive.