Carlo Cecchetto | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research (original) (raw)

Papers by Carlo Cecchetto

Research paper thumbnail of “Perché” Rizzi is right

ciscl.unisi.it

In this squib we elaborate on the proposal that perché ('whys) does not leave a trace inside... more In this squib we elaborate on the proposal that perché ('whys) does not leave a trace inside the IP and argue that this peculiarity explains the absence of free relatives introduced by 'whys as well as some order restrictions concerning reason clauses. We also discuss why ...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The Syntax of Predicate Ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS

We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and show that i... more We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and show that it has common properties with VP ellipsis in languages like English. For example, the ellipsis site can contain a wh-trace and semantic restrictions on the type of predicate that can be omitted are only derivative. We thus propose a phonological deletion approach for the LIS construction. We also consider the issue of how the content of the ellipsis site is recovered from its linguistic antecedent. We present new arguments for a syntactic identity condition, although a limited number of mismatches between the ellipsis site and its antecedent, notably including vehicle change cases, must be accommodated.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Phonological blending or code mixing? Why mouthing is not a core component of sign language grammar

The level of integration of mouthing into the sign language system was investigated using a novel... more The level of integration of mouthing into the sign language system was investigated using a novel experimental procedure. We constructed a word/sign matching task in which the signer has to indicate whether a LIS (Italian Sign Language) sign matches the written Italian word that follows the video presentation of the sign. In the congruent condition, the word matches the sign, while in the incongruent condition the word matches a sign which forms a minimal pair with the sign that has been presented in the video. To form minimal pairs, all four traditional formational parameters for signs plus mouthing were considered. Lip movements were present only in mouthing minimal pairs. In the incongruent condition we compared mouthing minimal pairs separately to handshape minimal pairs, location minimal pairs, movement minimal pairs, and palm orientation minimal pairs. Accuracy was markedly lower for minimal pairs distinguished by mouthing than for minimal pairs distinguished by one of the four parameters. In the congruent condition we compared mouthing minimal pairs to all the other minimal pairs, in which lips movements were absent. Reaction times were shorter in the presence of mouthing as a consequence of the strong mapping between orthography and mouthing, confirming that mouthing is highly connected to the Italian lexicon. Participants seem to consider mouthing external to the sign to be matched with the word. We propose that cases of disambiguation by mouthing should be interpreted as cases of simultaneous code mixing. Therefore, our experimental results suggest that mouthing is not a core component of sign languages.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Relative clauses are not adjuncts: an experimental investigation of a corollary of the raising analyses

Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long deb... more Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long debate in the last forty years, opposing largely diverging syntactic analyses, comparing relevant data and discussing perspectives. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by adding novel experimental data on how these structures are processed in an online reading task. Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the temporal structural ambiguity that can arise between object relative clauses (object RCs; 'the claim that linguists made is a mistake)' and so-called complement clauses of a noun (CCs; 'the claim that linguists made a mistake...') in Italian and English. Although the pattern is complex, the results of both experiments suggest that a reanalysis effect is associated with CCs, showing an initial preference for the object RC structural interpretation. The implications of our results are discussed in relation to competing syntactic analyses for CCs ad RCs.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2015

ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in ... more ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in the investigation of syntactic variation. To that end, we applied the factorial definition of island effects made available by experimental syntax (e.g., Sprouse et al. 2012) to four island types (wh/whether, complex NP, subject, and adjunct), two dependency types (wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies) and two languages (English and Italian). The results of 8 primary experiments suggest that there is indeed variation across dependency types, suggesting that wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies cannot be identical at every level of analysis; however, the pattern of variation observed in these experiments is not exactly the pattern of variation previously reported in the literature (e.g., Rizzi 1982). We review six major syntactic approaches to the analysis of island effects (Subjacency, CED, Barriers, Relativized Minimality, Structure-building, and Phases) and discuss the implications of these results for these analyses. We also present 4 supplemental experiments testing complex wh-phrases (also called D-linked or lexically restricted wh-phrases) for all four island types using the factorial design in order to tease apart the contribution of dependency type from featural specification. The results of the supplemental experiments confirm that dependency type is the major source of variation, not featural specification, while providing a concrete quantification of what exactly the effect of complex wh-phrases on island effects is.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Variation in Italian Sign Language (LIS): The case of wh-signs

Linguistics, 2015

The position of wh-items is one of the most striking features of the syntax of sign languages (SL... more The position of wh-items is one of the most striking features of the syntax of sign languages (SLs). In contrast to spoken languages, where wh-words are generally found either clause-initially or in situ, SLs allow wh-signs in situ, in clause-final position (preferred for many SLs), or repeated in two different positions of the clause. Moreover, in many cases all these options coexist in the same language (and even within a single signer). Several proposals in the theoretical literature showed how grammars are able to generate such constructions; however, none of the proposals addresses the issue of what factors determine the choice of these options. We present corpus evidence showing that both linguistic and social factors constrain the distribution of wh-signs in LIS (Lingua dei Segni Italiana, Italian Sign Language). The result of multivariate analysis suggests that LIS is undergoing a grammatical change and becoming less like spoken Italian with respect to the position of wh-signs.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A Challenge to Null Case Theory

Linguistic Inquiry, 2004

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of the LIS corpus project

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Nouns do not take complements: A theoretical claim and a psycholinguistic experiment

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of C. Cecchetto E C. Donati (2014). Relativization in Italian Sign Language (LIS): The missing link of relativization. In Herrmann, Pfau and Steinbach (ed.), Complex sentences and beyond. De Gruyter

Relativization in Italian Sign Language (LIS): the missing link of relativization 0. Introduction... more Relativization in Italian Sign Language (LIS): the missing link of relativization 0. Introduction Relativization in LIS (Lingua dei Segni Italiana, Italian Sign Language 1) is one of those still rather few cases in the field of sign language linguistics where there is some literature, a number of diverging analyses, and some debate. This literature and this disagreement will constitute the base for this article. We refer in particular to two 'families' of analyses: the first, pioneering discovery of a relativization strategy in LIS by the Milan group (Carlo Cecchetto and Carlo Geraci, Sandro Zucchi), described in Cecchetto, Geraci and Zucchi 2006; the alternative approach pursued by Chiara Branchini in her thesis (Branchini 2007/in press), developed and summarized in Branchini and Donati (2009). The aim of this talk is to reconcile the opposing views proposed in these papers under a new general analysis of relativization. We will first start from what we know about relativiz...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Semantic interfaces: References, anaphora and aspect. Dedicated to Andrea Bonomi on the occasion of his 60th birthday

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2015

ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in ... more ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in the investigation of syntactic variation. To that end, we applied the factorial definition of island effects made available by experimental syntax (e.g., Sprouse et al. 2012) to four island types (wh/whether, complex NP, subject, and adjunct), two dependency types (wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies) and two languages (English and Italian). The results of 8 primary experiments suggest that there is indeed variation across dependency types, suggesting that wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies cannot be identical at every level of analysis; however, the pattern of variation observed in these experiments is not exactly the pattern of variation previously reported in the literature (e.g., Rizzi 1982). We review six major syntactic approaches to the analysis of island effects (Subjacency, CED, Barriers, Relativized Minimality, Structure-building, and Phases) and discuss the implications of these results for these analyses. We also present 4 supplemental experiments testing complex wh-phrases (also called D-linked or lexically restricted wh-phrases) for all four island types using the factorial design in order to tease apart the contribution of dependency type from featural specification. The results of the supplemental experiments confirm that dependency type is the major source of variation, not featural specification, while providing a concrete quantification of what exactly the effect of complex wh-phrases on island effects is.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The syntax of predicate ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Lingua, 2015

ABSTRACT We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and sh... more ABSTRACT We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and show that it has common properties with VP ellipsis in languages like English. For example, the ellipsis site can contain a wh-trace and semantic restrictions on the type of predicate that can be omitted are only derivative. We thus propose a phonological deletion approach for the LIS construction. We also consider the issue of how the content of the ellipsis site is recovered from its linguistic antecedent. We present new arguments for a syntactic identity condition, although a limited number of mismatches between the ellipsis site and its antecedent, notably including vehicle change cases, must be accommodated.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Comprendo. Batteria per la comprensione di frasi negli adulti

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The effect of deafness and musical training on perception of space

Multisensory Research, 2013

ABSTRACT Individuals tend to show a slight but systematic leftward bias when asked to bisect a li... more ABSTRACT Individuals tend to show a slight but systematic leftward bias when asked to bisect a line in ether the visual or haptic modality, a tendency known as pseudoneglect (Bowers and Heilman, 1980) and that is likely to reflect a right-hemisphere dominance in spatial attention. Interestingly, when asked to bisect visual lines musicians have been found to be more accurate than non musicians and also to show an opposite slight rightward bias (‘minineglect’) (Patston et al., 2006). Here we show for the first time that deaf individuals are also more accurate than hearing individuals in bisecting visual lines, and that they show a slight tendency to bisect to the right of the true center, resembling the pattern of musicians. Hence, paradoxically, musical training and sign language seems to affect the way peripersonal space is represented in a similar vein. Interestingly, we observed the same pattern in the haptic modality: when asked to bisect haptic lines, the musicians we recruited were more accurate than non musicians, and showed a slight tendency to bisect to the right of the true midpoint. Deaf individuals showed a more variable pattern depending on the hand used to bisect the line: with the left hand, a clear rightward bias emerged. Overall, our data show that deafness and intense music training may have similar effects on visuo-spatial attention.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Phonology without semantics? Good enough for verbal short-term memory. Evidence from a patient with semantic dementia

Cortex, 2013

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The effect of language structure on linguistic strengths and weaknesses in children with cochlear implants: Evidence from Italian

Applied Psycholinguistics, 2012

ABSTRACT Previous studies have found that the early fitting of cochlear implants in children has ... more ABSTRACT Previous studies have found that the early fitting of cochlear implants in children has beneficial effects on their expressive and receptive language. However, different ages are identified in different studies, and some studies present contradictory results. Starting from these observations, our study suggests that at least two additional factors play an important role in determining linguistic outcomes. The first is the area of language under investigation: lexicon, phonology, morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The second factor is the typological features of the child's target language. Our study, which involved 33 Italian-speaking children who received a cochlear implant and 33 age and gender matched controls, reveals that lexical, semantic, pragmatic, and phonological knowledge are not particularly vulnerable in these children. By contrast, one area of morphosyntax (production of clitic pronouns) is especially challenging. In addition, an effect of age of implantation was found only in this morphosyntactic area. This is the first study on language development in Italian-speaking children with cochlear implants.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Constituency as a Language Universal: The Case of Latin

The main goal of this paper is to show that the flexible word order of Latin does not prevent us ... more The main goal of this paper is to show that the flexible word order of Latin does not prevent us from fruitfully applying to Latin a set of constituency tests that have been developed in modern linguistics. Particularly, we will show that, when the concept of constituent is correctly defined, it effectively applies to Latin. We will do so by comparing English, a rigid word order language, Italian, a more flexible word order language and Latin, which is even freer. This paper is organized as follows, In section 1, we offer a brief introduction on the issues that concern the current theoretical debate on the topic. In section 2, we make a general point, namely that constituents may be formed by words that are not contiguous, at least in languages with a flexible word order. In section 3, we discuss various tests that identify VP and TP as possible constituents in Latin: these tests includes pro-form substitution, ellipsis and fragment answers. Section 4 discusses tests to identify the CP layer as a constituent: these include pro-form substitution and extraposition. In the same section we deal with a possible complication arising from the use of pro-form substitution as a constituency test but we show that it does not affect the cases we discuss. Our conclusion in Section 5 is that constituents may be discontinuous in Latin (as in other languages), they may not be easy to identify, but they do exist.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of When We Do That and When We Don't: a Contrastive Analysis of VP Ellipsis and VP Anaphora

Phases of Interpretation, Mouton de …, Jan 1, 2006

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of When relative clauses are preferred. An unexpected garden path and its consequences for sentence processing and syntax

Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate a novel temporal ambiguity between obje... more Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate a novel temporal ambiguity between
object relative clauses (object RCs; 'the claim that John made is false)' and complement clauses of a
noun (CCs; 'the claim that John made a mistake...') in Italian and English. This study has three main
goals: the first is to assess whether a temporary ambiguity between a RC and CC structure gives rise
to a garden path effect; the second, is to consider the potential implications of this effect in relation to
current parsing theories and determine whether it is compatible with the predictions drawn from the
family of reanalysis-based two-stages models (a.o. Frazier 1987; Traxler, Pickering & Clifton 1998;
Van Gompel, Pickering & Traxler 1999); the third is to evaluate competing syntactic analysis for CC
structures. A more traditional analysis of CCs will be compared with a recent proposal presented in
Cecchetto & Donati (2011) and Donati & Cecchetto (2015). We will show that only this latter
account is consistent with our experimental findings.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of “Perché” Rizzi is right

ciscl.unisi.it

In this squib we elaborate on the proposal that perché ('whys) does not leave a trace inside... more In this squib we elaborate on the proposal that perché ('whys) does not leave a trace inside the IP and argue that this peculiarity explains the absence of free relatives introduced by 'whys as well as some order restrictions concerning reason clauses. We also discuss why ...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The Syntax of Predicate Ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS

We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and show that i... more We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and show that it has common properties with VP ellipsis in languages like English. For example, the ellipsis site can contain a wh-trace and semantic restrictions on the type of predicate that can be omitted are only derivative. We thus propose a phonological deletion approach for the LIS construction. We also consider the issue of how the content of the ellipsis site is recovered from its linguistic antecedent. We present new arguments for a syntactic identity condition, although a limited number of mismatches between the ellipsis site and its antecedent, notably including vehicle change cases, must be accommodated.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Phonological blending or code mixing? Why mouthing is not a core component of sign language grammar

The level of integration of mouthing into the sign language system was investigated using a novel... more The level of integration of mouthing into the sign language system was investigated using a novel experimental procedure. We constructed a word/sign matching task in which the signer has to indicate whether a LIS (Italian Sign Language) sign matches the written Italian word that follows the video presentation of the sign. In the congruent condition, the word matches the sign, while in the incongruent condition the word matches a sign which forms a minimal pair with the sign that has been presented in the video. To form minimal pairs, all four traditional formational parameters for signs plus mouthing were considered. Lip movements were present only in mouthing minimal pairs. In the incongruent condition we compared mouthing minimal pairs separately to handshape minimal pairs, location minimal pairs, movement minimal pairs, and palm orientation minimal pairs. Accuracy was markedly lower for minimal pairs distinguished by mouthing than for minimal pairs distinguished by one of the four parameters. In the congruent condition we compared mouthing minimal pairs to all the other minimal pairs, in which lips movements were absent. Reaction times were shorter in the presence of mouthing as a consequence of the strong mapping between orthography and mouthing, confirming that mouthing is highly connected to the Italian lexicon. Participants seem to consider mouthing external to the sign to be matched with the word. We propose that cases of disambiguation by mouthing should be interpreted as cases of simultaneous code mixing. Therefore, our experimental results suggest that mouthing is not a core component of sign languages.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Relative clauses are not adjuncts: an experimental investigation of a corollary of the raising analyses

Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long deb... more Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long debate in the last forty years, opposing largely diverging syntactic analyses, comparing relevant data and discussing perspectives. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by adding novel experimental data on how these structures are processed in an online reading task. Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the temporal structural ambiguity that can arise between object relative clauses (object RCs; 'the claim that linguists made is a mistake)' and so-called complement clauses of a noun (CCs; 'the claim that linguists made a mistake...') in Italian and English. Although the pattern is complex, the results of both experiments suggest that a reanalysis effect is associated with CCs, showing an initial preference for the object RC structural interpretation. The implications of our results are discussed in relation to competing syntactic analyses for CCs ad RCs.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2015

ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in ... more ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in the investigation of syntactic variation. To that end, we applied the factorial definition of island effects made available by experimental syntax (e.g., Sprouse et al. 2012) to four island types (wh/whether, complex NP, subject, and adjunct), two dependency types (wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies) and two languages (English and Italian). The results of 8 primary experiments suggest that there is indeed variation across dependency types, suggesting that wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies cannot be identical at every level of analysis; however, the pattern of variation observed in these experiments is not exactly the pattern of variation previously reported in the literature (e.g., Rizzi 1982). We review six major syntactic approaches to the analysis of island effects (Subjacency, CED, Barriers, Relativized Minimality, Structure-building, and Phases) and discuss the implications of these results for these analyses. We also present 4 supplemental experiments testing complex wh-phrases (also called D-linked or lexically restricted wh-phrases) for all four island types using the factorial design in order to tease apart the contribution of dependency type from featural specification. The results of the supplemental experiments confirm that dependency type is the major source of variation, not featural specification, while providing a concrete quantification of what exactly the effect of complex wh-phrases on island effects is.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Variation in Italian Sign Language (LIS): The case of wh-signs

Linguistics, 2015

The position of wh-items is one of the most striking features of the syntax of sign languages (SL... more The position of wh-items is one of the most striking features of the syntax of sign languages (SLs). In contrast to spoken languages, where wh-words are generally found either clause-initially or in situ, SLs allow wh-signs in situ, in clause-final position (preferred for many SLs), or repeated in two different positions of the clause. Moreover, in many cases all these options coexist in the same language (and even within a single signer). Several proposals in the theoretical literature showed how grammars are able to generate such constructions; however, none of the proposals addresses the issue of what factors determine the choice of these options. We present corpus evidence showing that both linguistic and social factors constrain the distribution of wh-signs in LIS (Lingua dei Segni Italiana, Italian Sign Language). The result of multivariate analysis suggests that LIS is undergoing a grammatical change and becoming less like spoken Italian with respect to the position of wh-signs.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A Challenge to Null Case Theory

Linguistic Inquiry, 2004

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of the LIS corpus project

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Nouns do not take complements: A theoretical claim and a psycholinguistic experiment

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of C. Cecchetto E C. Donati (2014). Relativization in Italian Sign Language (LIS): The missing link of relativization. In Herrmann, Pfau and Steinbach (ed.), Complex sentences and beyond. De Gruyter

Relativization in Italian Sign Language (LIS): the missing link of relativization 0. Introduction... more Relativization in Italian Sign Language (LIS): the missing link of relativization 0. Introduction Relativization in LIS (Lingua dei Segni Italiana, Italian Sign Language 1) is one of those still rather few cases in the field of sign language linguistics where there is some literature, a number of diverging analyses, and some debate. This literature and this disagreement will constitute the base for this article. We refer in particular to two 'families' of analyses: the first, pioneering discovery of a relativization strategy in LIS by the Milan group (Carlo Cecchetto and Carlo Geraci, Sandro Zucchi), described in Cecchetto, Geraci and Zucchi 2006; the alternative approach pursued by Chiara Branchini in her thesis (Branchini 2007/in press), developed and summarized in Branchini and Donati (2009). The aim of this talk is to reconcile the opposing views proposed in these papers under a new general analysis of relativization. We will first start from what we know about relativiz...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Semantic interfaces: References, anaphora and aspect. Dedicated to Andrea Bonomi on the occasion of his 60th birthday

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2015

ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in ... more ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in the investigation of syntactic variation. To that end, we applied the factorial definition of island effects made available by experimental syntax (e.g., Sprouse et al. 2012) to four island types (wh/whether, complex NP, subject, and adjunct), two dependency types (wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies) and two languages (English and Italian). The results of 8 primary experiments suggest that there is indeed variation across dependency types, suggesting that wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies cannot be identical at every level of analysis; however, the pattern of variation observed in these experiments is not exactly the pattern of variation previously reported in the literature (e.g., Rizzi 1982). We review six major syntactic approaches to the analysis of island effects (Subjacency, CED, Barriers, Relativized Minimality, Structure-building, and Phases) and discuss the implications of these results for these analyses. We also present 4 supplemental experiments testing complex wh-phrases (also called D-linked or lexically restricted wh-phrases) for all four island types using the factorial design in order to tease apart the contribution of dependency type from featural specification. The results of the supplemental experiments confirm that dependency type is the major source of variation, not featural specification, while providing a concrete quantification of what exactly the effect of complex wh-phrases on island effects is.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The syntax of predicate ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Lingua, 2015

ABSTRACT We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and sh... more ABSTRACT We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and show that it has common properties with VP ellipsis in languages like English. For example, the ellipsis site can contain a wh-trace and semantic restrictions on the type of predicate that can be omitted are only derivative. We thus propose a phonological deletion approach for the LIS construction. We also consider the issue of how the content of the ellipsis site is recovered from its linguistic antecedent. We present new arguments for a syntactic identity condition, although a limited number of mismatches between the ellipsis site and its antecedent, notably including vehicle change cases, must be accommodated.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Comprendo. Batteria per la comprensione di frasi negli adulti

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The effect of deafness and musical training on perception of space

Multisensory Research, 2013

ABSTRACT Individuals tend to show a slight but systematic leftward bias when asked to bisect a li... more ABSTRACT Individuals tend to show a slight but systematic leftward bias when asked to bisect a line in ether the visual or haptic modality, a tendency known as pseudoneglect (Bowers and Heilman, 1980) and that is likely to reflect a right-hemisphere dominance in spatial attention. Interestingly, when asked to bisect visual lines musicians have been found to be more accurate than non musicians and also to show an opposite slight rightward bias (‘minineglect’) (Patston et al., 2006). Here we show for the first time that deaf individuals are also more accurate than hearing individuals in bisecting visual lines, and that they show a slight tendency to bisect to the right of the true center, resembling the pattern of musicians. Hence, paradoxically, musical training and sign language seems to affect the way peripersonal space is represented in a similar vein. Interestingly, we observed the same pattern in the haptic modality: when asked to bisect haptic lines, the musicians we recruited were more accurate than non musicians, and showed a slight tendency to bisect to the right of the true midpoint. Deaf individuals showed a more variable pattern depending on the hand used to bisect the line: with the left hand, a clear rightward bias emerged. Overall, our data show that deafness and intense music training may have similar effects on visuo-spatial attention.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Phonology without semantics? Good enough for verbal short-term memory. Evidence from a patient with semantic dementia

Cortex, 2013

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The effect of language structure on linguistic strengths and weaknesses in children with cochlear implants: Evidence from Italian

Applied Psycholinguistics, 2012

ABSTRACT Previous studies have found that the early fitting of cochlear implants in children has ... more ABSTRACT Previous studies have found that the early fitting of cochlear implants in children has beneficial effects on their expressive and receptive language. However, different ages are identified in different studies, and some studies present contradictory results. Starting from these observations, our study suggests that at least two additional factors play an important role in determining linguistic outcomes. The first is the area of language under investigation: lexicon, phonology, morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The second factor is the typological features of the child's target language. Our study, which involved 33 Italian-speaking children who received a cochlear implant and 33 age and gender matched controls, reveals that lexical, semantic, pragmatic, and phonological knowledge are not particularly vulnerable in these children. By contrast, one area of morphosyntax (production of clitic pronouns) is especially challenging. In addition, an effect of age of implantation was found only in this morphosyntactic area. This is the first study on language development in Italian-speaking children with cochlear implants.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Constituency as a Language Universal: The Case of Latin

The main goal of this paper is to show that the flexible word order of Latin does not prevent us ... more The main goal of this paper is to show that the flexible word order of Latin does not prevent us from fruitfully applying to Latin a set of constituency tests that have been developed in modern linguistics. Particularly, we will show that, when the concept of constituent is correctly defined, it effectively applies to Latin. We will do so by comparing English, a rigid word order language, Italian, a more flexible word order language and Latin, which is even freer. This paper is organized as follows, In section 1, we offer a brief introduction on the issues that concern the current theoretical debate on the topic. In section 2, we make a general point, namely that constituents may be formed by words that are not contiguous, at least in languages with a flexible word order. In section 3, we discuss various tests that identify VP and TP as possible constituents in Latin: these tests includes pro-form substitution, ellipsis and fragment answers. Section 4 discusses tests to identify the CP layer as a constituent: these include pro-form substitution and extraposition. In the same section we deal with a possible complication arising from the use of pro-form substitution as a constituency test but we show that it does not affect the cases we discuss. Our conclusion in Section 5 is that constituents may be discontinuous in Latin (as in other languages), they may not be easy to identify, but they do exist.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of When We Do That and When We Don't: a Contrastive Analysis of VP Ellipsis and VP Anaphora

Phases of Interpretation, Mouton de …, Jan 1, 2006

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of When relative clauses are preferred. An unexpected garden path and its consequences for sentence processing and syntax

Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate a novel temporal ambiguity between obje... more Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate a novel temporal ambiguity between
object relative clauses (object RCs; 'the claim that John made is false)' and complement clauses of a
noun (CCs; 'the claim that John made a mistake...') in Italian and English. This study has three main
goals: the first is to assess whether a temporary ambiguity between a RC and CC structure gives rise
to a garden path effect; the second, is to consider the potential implications of this effect in relation to
current parsing theories and determine whether it is compatible with the predictions drawn from the
family of reanalysis-based two-stages models (a.o. Frazier 1987; Traxler, Pickering & Clifton 1998;
Van Gompel, Pickering & Traxler 1999); the third is to evaluate competing syntactic analysis for CC
structures. A more traditional analysis of CCs will be compared with a recent proposal presented in
Cecchetto & Donati (2011) and Donati & Cecchetto (2015). We will show that only this latter
account is consistent with our experimental findings.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact