Investigating Variation in Island Effects: A Case Study of Norwegian Wh-Extraction.

ABSTRACT: We present a series of large-scale formal acceptability judgment studies that explored Norwegian island phenomena in order to follow up on previous observations that speakers of Mainland Scandinavian languages like Norwegian accept violations of certain island constraints that are unacceptable in most languages cross-linguistically. We tested the acceptability of wh-extraction from five island types: whether-, complex NP, subject, adjunct, and relative clause (RC) islands. We found clear evidence of subject and adjunct island effects on wh-extraction. We failed to find evidence that Norwegians accept wh-extraction out of complex NPs and RCs. Our participants judged wh-extraction from complex NPs and RCs to be just as unacceptable as subject and adjunct island violations. The pattern of eff

SUBMITTER: Kush D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6130316 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature