Syntactically Based Parsing Strategies: Evidence From Typologically Different Languages
Marica De Vincenzi · 1998
Cross-linguistic investigation is a very popular topic in sentence processing. This chapter illustrates how cross-linguistic studies can motivate the formulation of a parsing strategy, and how methodological considerations can affect the comparisons among languages. One prediction of the minimal chain principal (MCP) is that the parser prefers postulating a singleton chain to postulating multimember chains. It predicts that in Italian in cases of ambiguities of the null-subject position the parser will prefer to postulate a "pro" that is in a singleton chain, to a "pro" that is in a longer chain. The case marking feature has allowed to test the abstract linguistic property at the base of the MCP, using unambiguously case-marked structures. Therefore, the MCP is supported not only as a principle driving the parser decisions at points of ambiguity, but also as a principle accounting for processing complexity.