This paper reports the results of a pilot study on the resolution of case conflicts in German free relative constructions. Section 1 gives a brief introduction into the phenomenon, section 2 presents the experiment and its results, section 3 ends the paper with a brief more general discussion

Frisch, Stefan

Vogel, Ralf

English

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The resolution of case conﬂicts. A pilot study¤Ralf Vogel Stefan FrischUniversity of PotsdamThis paper reports the results of a pilot study on the resolution of case conﬂictsin German free relative constructions. Section 1 gives a brief introduction intothe phenomenon, section 2 presents the experiment and its results, section 3ends the paper with a brief more general discussion.1 IntroductionThe syntactic construction that we are exploring is exempliﬁed by the clausesin (1):(1) a.b.WerWerwho-NOMeinmaleinmaloncel¨ ugt,l¨ ugt,liesderthe-NOMl¨ ugtl¨ ugtliesauchauchalsoeineinazweiteszweitessecondMalMaltimeThe subjects of the matrix clauses in these examples are underlined. The sen-tence in (1-b) has a free relative clause in the subject position of the matrixclause. (1-a) differs from (1-b) in the use of a resumptive d-pronoun in the sub-ject position of the matrix clause. The relative clause is dislocated. (1-a) is clas-¤We thank the participants of the seminar “Experimental Methods in Psycholinguistics”,winter term 2002/03, University of Potsdam, and especially Jutta Boethke, Heiner Drenhausand Ruben van de Vijver for assistance and practical support in carrying out the experiment.The work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) with a grant for the in-terdisciplinary research group “Conﬂicting Rules in Language and Cognition”, FOR375/A3(Vogel) and FOR375/B1 (Frisch).Linguistics in Potsdam 21 (2003): 91–103Susann Fischer, Ruben van de Vijver, Ralf Vogel (eds.)Experimental Studies in Linguistics 192 Ralf Vogel & Stefan Frischsiﬁed as a kind of correlative construction in Vogel (2002), while only (1-b)counts as an example of a free relative (FR) construction in the relevant sense.The interesting feature of FRs is that there is only one element, the FR pro-noun, ‘wer’ in (1-b), that could fulﬁl the case requirements of both the matrixverb and the verb within the FR. In (1), both verbs require nominative on theFR pronoun. No conﬂict arises, the clause is well-formed. Many languages al-low for FRs only under such circumstances. Other languages do not even allowfor constructions like (1-b). They obligatorily require a resumptive pronoun asexempliﬁed in (1-a).1 It seems that languages that allow for the pattern in (1-b)also have a construction like (1-a), but not necessarily vice versa. From a typo-logical perspective, the FR construction is marked as such.FRs lead to complications whenever the case requirements of the two verbsdiffer: the FR pronoun has to ‘decide’ which of the two cases it surfaces with.Vogel (2001) shows that the solutions for this case conﬂict vary a lot cross-linguistically, but in a systematic way. For the majority of German speakers,the grammaticality contrast in (2) holds.2 In both clauses, the FR functions asobject of the matrix verb. The two verbs chosen in these examples differ in thecase they require on their object: ‘vertrauen’ requires dative, and ‘einladen’accusative:(2) a. IchIlade ein,invitewemwho-DATichIvertrauetrust1 Languages that Vogel (2002) classiﬁes as non-FR languages are Korean, Hindi and TokPisin.2 The properties of German FRs have been discussed by Groos and van Riemsdijk (1981),Pittner (1991), Vogel (2001, 2002), M¨ uller (2002) and others.Resolution of case conﬂicts 93b. *IchIvertraue,trustwenwho-ACCichIeinladeinviteIn German FRs, the FR pronoun must realise the case assigned within the rel-ative clause. Hence, (2-b) is also ungrammatical with the FR pronoun in thedative case required by the matrix verb:(3) *IchIvertraue,trustwemwho-DATichIeinladeinvite(3) would be grammatical in Modern Greek, Romanian, Gothic, and Icelandic(See Vogel, 2002, for discussion and references). Romanian and Gothic wouldalso display the contrast in (2), while both examples in (2) would be ungram-matical in Icelandic which obligatorily requires the FR pronoun to realise thecase required by the matrix verb. The interesting details of the cross-linguistictypology are presented in Vogel (2002). In what follows, we will use the ab-breviations ‘m-case’ (for the case required by the matrix verb) and ‘r-case’(forthecaserequiredbytherelativeclauseinternalverb),asintroducedinVogel(2001).Let us return to our examples in (2). The important observation about situa-tions where the two required cases conﬂict is that some of these conﬂicts lead toungrammaticality while others do not – accusative can be suppressed in favourof dative, but not vice versa.Vogel (2001) found that German seems to be divided into three ‘variants’that differ in which case conﬂicts they tolerate.Example (1) is judged grammatical in all reported variants. A dialect called‘German A’ in Vogel (2001) also considers both clauses in (4) as well-formed,94 Ralf Vogel & Stefan FrischVogel’s (2001) ‘German B’ only allows for (4-a) and Vogel’s (2001) ‘GermanC’ disallows both:(4) a. Michme-ACCl¨ ad ein,inviteswenwho-ACCichInettniceﬁndeﬁndb. IchI-NOMlade ein,invitewerwho-NOMnettnicezutomirmeistisHere the case conﬂict is between nominative (m-case in (4-a), r-case in(4-b)) and accusative (r-case in (4-a), m-case in (4-b)). But note that thespeakers from each of the three variants accept the following examples:(5) a. EsItwurdewaszerst¨ ortdestroyedwaswhat-NOM/ACCsietheyfandenfoundb. Erhezerst¨ ortedestroyedwaswhat-NOM/ACCihmhim-DATbegegnetemetFrom an abstract syntactic perspective, the situation in (4) and (5) is the same:in (4-a) and (5-a), m-case is nominative, and r-case is accusative; and viceversa for (4-b) and (5-b). The difference is that the inanimate wh-pronoun ‘was’is the same for both cases, and this seems to be sufﬁcient to resolve the oth-erwise un-resolvable case conﬂict in German B and C. FR clauses where theFR pronoun fulﬁls both case requirements are called matching FRs. Anotherexample of a matching FR is (1). German C only allows for matching FRs.Non-matchingFRswheredativecaseisinvolved(oranyotherobliqueform)aretreatedalikeinGermanAandB,inthewayindicatedin(2).Dativecasemaynever be suppressed, and the FR pronoun must surface with r-case. There isResolution of case conﬂicts 95no way to satisfy these two constraints in the situation exempliﬁed by (2-b).Pittner (1991) was the ﬁrst to argue that a case hierarchy is at work in theseexamples. For the variant of German that she describes, Vogel’s (2001) GermanB, a case in a non-matching FR can only be suppressed if it is suppressed infavour of a case that is higher on the following case hierarchy:(6) Case hierarchy for German B: (following Pittner (1991))nominative Á accusative Á oblique (dative, genitive, PP)Vogel’s German A is ‘blind’ for the difference between the two structural casesnominative and accusative:(7) Case hierarchy for German A: (following Vogel (2001))structural (nominative, accusative) Á oblique (dative, genitive, PP)The observed variants of German can be ranked according to their ‘tolerance’of case conﬂicts. German A is the most tolerant, followed by German B, andGerman C, which allows for no FRs in case of case conﬂicts. This ranking of thevariantsintermsof‘tolerance’isinterestinginsofarasitmirrorsthe markednessof the different FR types, in the way indicated in Table 1. Matching FRs are theleast marked ones, and non-matching FRs with suppression of oblique case aremost marked.The source of the three ‘variants’ is unclear. No dialectal or sociolectal fac-tor could be discovered so far. It might very well be the case that they are aninstance of inter-speaker variation along a general markedness metric that canbe observed and should also be manifest in other constructions, and should infact be expected within any language community.96 Ralf Vogel & Stefan FrischMatching FRs possible in German A, B, CÁ Non-matching FRs thatsuppress a lower casepossible in German A, BÁ Non-matching FRs thatsuppress a higher struc-tural casepossible in German AÁ Non-matching FRs thatsuppress oblique caseimpossible in GermanTab. 1: Markedness scale of FRs with case conﬂicts and how theyrelate to the observed variants of German2 The present studyThe experiment that we want to present focuses on the difference betweenmatchingandnon-matchingFRs,andacceptableandnon-acceptablenon-matchingFRs. Our expectation is that increased markedness in terms of Table 1 shouldgo along with decreased acceptability rates. We are ﬁrst of all interested in thedifference between German C on the one hand, and German A and B on theother. For this reason, we examine a case conﬂict that is treated uniformly inGerman A and B, the conﬂict between accusative and dative. Our expectationsare:1. Constructions with matching FRs should be judged as grammatical with ahigher probability than constructions with non-matching FRs.2. Constructions with non-matching FRs that suppress accusative should beResolution of case conﬂicts 97judged as grammatical with a higher probability than constructions withnon-matching FRs that suppress dative.2.1 MethodsParticipants 24 students3 participated in the experiment for course credits.TheywereallmonolingualnativespeakersofGermanandhadnormalorcorrected-to-normal vision. They were naive with respect to the goals of the study.Materials All sentences used consisted of a matrix clause followed by a freerelative clause. Examples for each of the critical experimental conditions aregiven in (8) to (11) in the following (with literal English translations):(8) m-case = accusative, r-case = accusative (AA):MariaMariabesuchte,visited-[ acc]wenwho-ACCsieshemochte.liked-[ acc](9) m-case = dative, r-case = dative (DD):MariaMariahalf,helped-[ dat]wemwho-DATsieshevertraute.trusted-[ dat](10) m-case = accusative, r-case = dative (AD):MariaMariabesuchte,visited-[ acc]wemwho-DATsieshevertraute.trusted-[ dat](11) m-case = dative, r-case = accusative (DA):MariaMariahalf,helped-[ dat]wenwho-ACCsieshemochte.liked-[ acc]3 The total number of participants in the experiment was 36. We excluded 12 participants forthe reason that they rejected nearly all of the test sentences, or acted at chance level.98 Ralf Vogel & Stefan FrischThe verb in the matrix clause subcategorized its object either for accusative (asin1and3)orfordative(asin2and4).Therelativepronounwasunambiguouslymarked for either accusative (as in 1 and 4) or for dative case (as in 2 and 3).There were 8 sentences in each condition which were created out of 8 sets witha proper name and four verbs (two accusative and two dative verbs) in eachset. The 32 experimental sentences were intermixed with 144 non-related ﬁllersentences.2.2 ProcedureThe total of 176 sentences were randomly assigned to four blocks of 44 sen-tences in each block with the constraint that each condition should occur oneto three times per block. Within the blocks, a randomised order was generatedwith the constraints that two sentences of one condition should not occur in im-mediate succession. All sentences were presented word-by-word with 250 mspresentation for each word. Each sentence was preceded by a star-shaped cue.500 ms after the last word subjects were asked to judge the acceptability of thesentence.2.3 Data analysisTrials with response latencies longer than 3000 ms were excluded as timeouts(12.0% across critical conditions).4 We then computed the mean percentagesof rejections as well as the corresponding mean response latencies for each of4 Subjects had signiﬁcantly more timeouts in the mismatching conditions (16.4%) comparedto the matching ones (7.6%) (F1(1,23)=6.45, p < .05; F2(1,23)=23.25, p < .01). No othercomparisons were signiﬁcant.Resolution of case conﬂicts 99the critical conditions accumulated over subjects as well as over items. Differ-ences between conditions were analysed statistically with a repeated measuresANOVA with the two factors MATCH (matching versus mismatching verb andrelative pronoun) and MATRIX VERB (matrix verb accusative versus dative).An interaction was resolved by computing single comparisons between the twomatching and mismatching conditions, respectively. All analyses were doneseparately for subjects (F1) and items (F2).2.4 ResultsTable 2 and ﬁgure 1 display the mean error percentages of rejected sentencesfor all 24 subjects in each of the four critical conditions. As can be seen, rejec-tion percentages in the two matching conditions look rather similar, but subjectsseem to have accepted such sentences more often than the sentences in whichthe verbs in matrix and relative clause mismatch. Comparing the two mismatch-ing conditions, a dative verb in the matrix clause seems to induce more rejec-tions compared to an accusative verb in matrix clause.MATRIX VERBMATCH accusative dativematch 28.1 (32.8) 26.0 (31.0)mismatch 37.0 (32.7) 49.0 (23.6)Tab. 2: Mean rejections (in %, with standard deviations in paren-theses) in each of the four conditions (n = 24).The statistical analysis for the mean rejections revealed a main effect of100 Ralf Vogel & Stefan FrischACC28.1matchDAT26.0ACC37.0mismatchDAT49.010203040506070Fig. 1: Mean rejections in %. (Non-)Matching FRs relative to thecase required by the matrix verbMATCH (F1(1,23) = 17.83, p < .001, F2(1,7) = 102.15, p < .001), due to morerejections in the mismatching (43.0%) compared to the matching conditions(27.1%). There was no main effect of MATRIX VERB (F1(1,23) = 2.79, p =.10, F2(1,7) = 2.03, p = .20), but we found an interaction between both factors(F1(1,23) = 5.79, p < .05, only marginal in the item analysis: F2(1,7) = 3.85,p = .09). Resolving this interaction revealed that there was no difference be-tween the two matching conditions (F1 < 1, F2 < 1), but that subjects rejectedmismatching sentences with a dative matrix verb signiﬁcantly more often thanmismatching sentences with an accusative verb in the matrix clause (F1(1,23) =5.57, p < .05, F2(1,7) = 6.72, p<.05).In order to exclude possible speed-accuracy trade-off effects, we also anal-ysed the mean response latencies for the rejections in each critical conditionwhich are displayed in Table 3 for all 24 subjects.The statistical analysis for the mean latencies revealed neither a main effectResolution of case conﬂicts 101MATRIX VERBMATCH accusative dativematch 1115 (545) 1107 (565)mismatch 973 (400) 1125 (512)Tab. 3: Mean response latencies (in ms, with standard deviationsin parentheses) for the rejections in each of the four con-ditions (n = 24).of Match (F1 < 1, F2 < 1), nor of Matrix verb (F1 < 1, F2(1,7) = 1.28, p = .30),nor did we ﬁnd an interaction between both factors (F1 < 1, F2(1,7) = 1.18, p= .31).Taken together, the results clearly show that free relative clauses in whichthe case assigned by the matrix verb and the case of the relative pronoun mis-match are more probably rejected compared to sentences matching in this re-spect.Furthermore,suchamismatchismoreoftenjudgedasbeingunacceptablewhen the matrix verb assigns dative and the relative pronoun bears accusativecase than vice versa.3 DiscussionThe signiﬁcant differences in the relative probabilities of acceptance can beinterpreted as a direct reﬂection of the markedness scale that we introduced inthe ﬁrst section. Having a case conﬂict is more marked than not having one, andsuppressing dative is more marked than suppressing accusative.In footnote 4 we brieﬂy mentioned that the mismatching conditions pro-102 Ralf Vogel & Stefan Frischduced signiﬁcantly more timeouts among the participants. This result also re-ﬂects the relative markedness of the case conﬂict conditions. A natural expla-nation would be that case conﬂicts make the decision on the grammaticality ofthe example more difﬁcult.The relatively high number of rejections even for the matching conditions(27.1%), as well as the need to exclude one third of the initial participants (cf.footnote 3), might also be due to the overall markedness of the constructionitself.An open question is how our results relate to the concept of grammaticality.We found two signiﬁcant differences between types of free relative clauses.Which of these, one might ask, reﬂects the threshold for grammaticality? Tryingto answer such a question would force one to decide whether German eitherdoes not allow for non-matching FRs or only for FRs that suppress accusative,but not dative. Such a decision would appear purely normative, and might beimpossible to justify on independent grounds.But there is an alternative line of reasoning. The grammar of German mightbe designed in such a way that it produces this variation which is not arbitrary,butreﬂectstherelativemarkednessoftheconstructionsunderexamination.Ger-man A, B and C could be seen as altogether constituting the reality of the singleGerman grammar. We would then need a theory of grammar that predicts suchvariation. A conception of grammaticality that is based on markedness, as it isused prominently in Optimality Theory, could presumably be (made) compati-ble with such a perspective on the empirical reality of grammars.Future work will explore the nature of German A, B and C in more de-tail, with case conﬂicts both in FRs and in other syntactic constructions. AnResolution of case conﬂicts 103attempt to answer the question whether the variants could have a sociologicalbackground will also be part of these studies.ReferencesGroos, Anneke and Henk van Riemsdijk (1981). ‘Matching Effects with FreeRelatives: a Parameter of Core Grammar.’ In Belletti, Adriana, LucianaBrandi, and Luigi Rizzi, eds., Theories of Markedness in Generative Gram-mar, pp. 171–216. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.M¨ uller, Stefan (2002). ‘An Extended and Revised HPSG-Analysis for FreeRelative Clauses in German.’ Vm Report 225, Verbmobil Verbundvorhaben,DfKI, Saarbr¨ ucken.Pittner, Karin (1991). ‘Freie Relativs¨ atze und die Kasushierarchie.’ In Feld-busch, Elisabeth, ed., Neue Fragen der Linguistik, pp. 341–347. T¨ ubingen:Niemeyer.Vogel, Ralf (2001). ‘Case Conﬂict in German Free Relative Constructions. AnOptimality Theoretic Treatment.’ In M¨ uller, Gereon and Wolfgang Sternefeld,eds., Competition in Syntax, pp. 341–375. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.— (2002). ‘Free Relative Constructions in OT Syntax.’ In Fanselow, Gisbertand Caroline F´ ery, eds., Resolving Conﬂicts in Grammars: Optimality Theoryin Syntax, Morphology, and Phonology, Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft 11,pp. 119–162. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.

An Extended and Revised HPSG-Analysis for Free Relative Clauses

Case Conﬂict in German Free Relative Constructions. An Optimality Theoretic Treatment.’

Free Relative Constructions in OT Syntax.’

Freie Relativs¨ atze und die Kasushierarchie.’

Matching Effects with Free Relatives: a Parameter of Core Grammar.’

The resolution of case conflicts : a pilot study

The resolution of case conflicts : a pilot study

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