Effects of NP Type on the Resolution of Word-Order Ambiguities

Locally ambiguous NP1 NP2 V clauses in Dutch are preferably assigned a subject-object rather than an object-subject interpretation, presumably on the basis of structurally based principles such as the Active-Filler Strategy. The present study investigates whether this preference can be affected by a nonconfigurational factor, namely the nature of NP2. The type of an NP (indefinite NPs, full definite NPs, pronouns) conveys information about the discourse status of the NP referent, which, in turn, is associated with a specific syntactic position. More specifically, pronouns are used to refer to given, salient entities in the discourse (topics); and NPs with such referents are generally encoded in subject position. A self-paced reading experiment shows that NP1 NP2 V relative clauses are preferably interpreted as subject-object when NP2 is a full definite NP (e.g., de vrouwen “the women”), but not when NP2 is the second person pronoun jullie (“you”-PL). This suggests that the structural bias for a subject-first order is not as strong as has been previously assumed, but is influenced by discourse information encoded in the NPs. Implications for parsing models are discussed.

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