Discourse-based constraints on long-distance dependencies generalize across constructions in English and French

Abstract

The article presents four acceptability judgment experiments that evaluate novel predictions of the Focus-Background Conflict constraint (Abeillé et al. 2020, Cognition) with respect to the acceptability of long distance dependencies for so-called “subject islands” in English and French. In contrast with syntactic accounts, the Focus-Background Conflict constraint predicts differential behavior across different constructions. The current paper tests a novel prediction of this theory, in a construction that has not yet been tested experimentally: it-clefts. Experiment 1 shows that elements in clefted clauses are not uniformly backgrounded, contrary to a standard assumption in the syntax / discourse literature. Experiments 2–4 tested long-distance dependency relations in relative clauses and clefts. In both languages, there is strong evidence of a cross-construction difference when comparing the two constructions with each other: extraction of the subject complement out of a subject NP was super-additively difficult in clefts, but not in relative clauses, as predicted by the Focus-Background Conflict constraint.