138 Thursday, March 15: Poster Abstracts Binding accessibility and online anaphora processing

How do binding constraints influence the online processing of reflexive anaphors? According to the binding-as-initial-filter hypothesis (Nicol & Swinney, 1989), Principle A applies early in sentence processing such that only grammatically accessible noun phrases (NPs) are entertained as antecedents for reflexives. The defeasible filter hypothesis (Sturt, 2003), on the other hand, posits a more flexible system. Under this model, although Principle A constrains the earliest stage of processing, binding-inaccessible antecedents can be considered at later stages, particularly if they are in structurally-prominent (c-commanding) positions and are focused in discourse. An alternative is that the processing of reflexives is not initially constrained by Principle A (for such a proposal, see Badecker & Straub, 2002). The model proposed here is that reflexives trigger an antecedent search that considers both binding-accessible and-inaccessible antecedents, particularly if the latter are in local subject positions. This proposal will be referred to as the constrained local search (CLS) hypothesis. These competing models were tested (N=40) by examining eye movements/reading time (RT) patterns on sentences (i) in which the main-clause subject was modified by either a subject- or object-extracted relative clause (SRC or ORC) and (ii) in which this subject matched or mismatched the gender of the NP in the RC (see the example sentences). Predictions: Both the binding-as-initial-filter hypothesis and the defeasible filter hypothesis predict that only th