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The real-time comprehension of WH-dependencies in a WH-agreement language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Matthew Wagers,
Manuel F. Borja and
Sandra Chung
Matthew Wagers*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Manuel F. Borja*
Affiliation:
Inetnun Åmut yan, Kutturan Natibu, CNMI
Sandra Chung*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
*
University of California, Santa Cruz Department of Linguistics 1156 High St., Santa Cruz, CA 95064 [mwagers@ucsc.edu]
[ianasfnma@gmail.com] (Borja)
[schung@ucsc.edu] (Chung)
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Extract

In the verb-initial language Chamorro, an Austronesian language of the Mariana Islands, WH-dependencies exhibit a special verbal inflection known as wh-agreement: verbs along the path of the wh-dependency are inflected for the grammatical relation of the gap and the intermediate landing sites of the filler. Two on-line comprehension experiments conducted in the Northern Mariana Islands reveal that the morphological paradigm of wh-agreement affects the timing of dependency formation and interpretation in this language. Overt wh-agreement facilitates the formation of a WH-dependency. When overt WH-agreement could occur but does not, however, its absence delays and attenuates WH-dependency formation. In short, morphological information exerts a powerful influence on the unfolding parse, one that has temporal priority over syntactic information, such as word order, and semantic information, such as argument structure.

Keywords

wh-dependenciescomprehensionChamorrowh-agreementpossessorsactive filler strategy

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 91 , Issue 1 , March 2015, pp. 109 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Linguistic Society of America

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