[pt] Esta dissertação tem como tema o processamento de orações relativas, focalizando estruturas com pronome resumptivo no Português Brasileiro (PB). O estudo baseia-se numa proposta teórica que visa a uma articulação entre teoria lingüística e teorias de processamento no tratamento da aquisição da linguagem e do processamento lingüístico. A hipótese de trabalho que orientou esta pesquisa é que existiria uma correlação entre a presença de resumptivo e o custo de processamento na produção, caracterizado em função da variável foco. No que se refere à compreensão, a literatura apresenta resultados conflitantes com relação a um efeito facilitador da presença do pronome resumptivo no que concerne à atribuição temática em relativas com foco no objeto. Dois experimentos são relatados. O primeiro teve como objetivo verificar o quanto, e em que direção, a presença do resumptivo afeta a compreensão de orações relativas por crianças de 3 e 5 anos falantes de PB. O segundo utilizou técnica de produção oral induzida para investigar o uso do resumptivo como estratégia de último recurso por adultos falantes de PB. Os resultados do experimento com crianças reiteram o efeito de foco, recorrente na literatura, mas não o efeito facilitador do resumptivo. Ao contrário, sua presença parece dificultar a compreensão por parte de crianças de 5 anos. Os resultados obtidos com adultos evidenciam maior incidência de resumptivos em orações relativas ramificadas à direita, nas estruturas previstas com sendo as de maior custo computacional, dando suporte à hipótese do resumptivo como estratégia de último recurso na produção da fala. / [en] This dissertation deals with the processing of relative clauses, and focuses on resumptive structures in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). It is grounded on a theory of language processing and acquisition that aims at reconciling a minimalist view of language with psycholinguistic models of sentence processing. The working hypothesis of this study is that there is a correlation between the presence of a resumptive pronoun and processing cost of the relative clause in sentence production, which is defined in relation to the variable focus. As far as comprehension is concerned, there is controversy with regard to the effect of the resumptive pronoun in children`s performance. In this study, two experiments are reported. The first one aimed at investigating the effect of a resumptive in thematic assignment, in relative clause comprehension by BP speaking 3 and 5 year olds. In the second one, an elicited production task was used with BP speaking adults in order to test the hypothesis of resumptives as a last resource strategy in oral sentence production. The results of the first experiment reiterate the effect of focus, but do not support the view that the resumptive pronoun has any facilitative effect. On the contrary, its presence seems to pose difficulties for 5 year olds. The results obtained with adults show a higher frequency of resumptives in right-branching sentences, in those conditions predicted to be the most demanding ones. These results are compatible with the hypothesis of resumptive relative clauses as the result of last resource strategy in language production.

Resumption has been the object of lively research (Doron 1982; Sells 1984; McClauskey 1990; 2002; Shlonsky 1992; Cann 1999; Sharvit 1999; Alexopoulou 2006; Guilliot 2006; Malkawi 2009; Rouveret 2011) and various analyses consider it a form of agreement, a last syntactic resort or a special kind of ellipsis. On the theoretical side, I survey the issues that are the background of the research, such as the nature of the pronouns that are involved in resumption. I develop a syntactic analysis of resumptive pronouns in which they are clitics (Cardinaletti and Starke 1999; Dechaine and Wiltschko 2002; Roberts 2010) and they form a complex determiner phrase together with the relative pronoun or interrogative pronoun. I argue that when resumption is obligatory, it follows from requirements in the syntax and only when it is optional it is a phenomenon at the syntax-pragmatics interface. On the empirical side, I contrast and compare the pronominal paradigms of Arabic and Romanian, an Eastern Romance language which strikingly shows a similar pattern of resumption as Arabic: (i) obligatory resumption in relativization, (ii) designated relative pronoun. Though for Romanian nobody has disputed the nature of the clitic pronouns as clitic in the sense that I am adopting (Cardinaletti and Starke 1999), it has not been thoroughly documented either. I then discuss the pragmatics of resumption in contexts in which it is optional, such as D-linked questions in Arabic. The difference between obligatory resumption and optional resumption is not found in the syntax, because this same syntactic derivation is associated with different interpretive effects depending on whether it occurs in obligatory or in optional contexts. I argue that the presence of the pronoun when it is not required by the syntax triggers a change in interpretation: the module pragmatics assigns it a pragmatic feature.

本文旨在從語法及語句處理的觀點探討中文關係子句中接應代詞(resumptive pronouns) 的現象。在語法上，本研究認為中文的接應代詞屬於詞基生成 (base-generated) 元素而非句法變項 (syntactic variables) 。接應代詞的出現受限於派生簡約原則 (derivational economy) 及合法度 (grammaticality) 的要求，唯有當間隙型關係子句 (gap relatives) 為非法時，接應代詞才是必要的；在其他情況下，接應代詞在中文裡為選擇性的策略之一。在語句處理上，本研究施測了三份合法度問卷並進行了兩項線上閱讀測驗。合法度的判別及線上的閱讀反應時間顯示，接應代詞之所以不被喜歡是因為接應代詞本身會引發花園路徑效果 (garden path effect) (在此為主要子句假象 (main-clause illusion) 的形成)。然而，接應代詞在間隙型關係子句為非法或引發花園路徑效果 (在此為重建困難 (difficult reconstruction) 所造成) 時卻變得較受喜愛。當間隙型關係子句涉及到複雜結構或複雜語句處理領域 (在此指的是重建複雜 (intricate reconstruction) ) 時，中文母語使用者並不會偏好使用間隙(gap)或是接應代詞來形成關係子句。這些研究結果意味著中文接應代詞不僅受限於合法度的要求，也受制於語句可處理性 (processability) 的程度，亦即有無受到花園路徑效果所影響。 / This thesis examines resumptive pronouns in Chinese relative clauses from the perspectives of grammar and processing. In the grammar, it is claimed in this research that resumptives in Chinese are base-generated pronouns rather than syntactic variables. Their occurrence can be predicted via derivational economy and grammaticality. Resumptives in Chinese are obligatory only when the gap relatives are ungrammatical. Otherwise, resumptives are optional. As for processing, three grammaticality judgments and two on-line self-paced reading tasks were conducted. The grammaticality judgments and the on-line reading times show that resumptives were dispreferred because they induced a garden-path effect (the main-clause illusion). However, resumptives became preferred when the gap relatives resulted in ungrammaticality or led to a garden path, thus inducing the difficulty of reconstruction. There was no preference for gaps or resumptives when the gap relatives involved complex structures or complicated processing domains (the intricate reconstruction). These results suggest that resumptives in Chinese are related not only to the issue of grammaticality but also to that of the processability (i.e. the garden-path effect).

[pt] Esta tese investiga a compreensão de orações relativas resumptivas no Português do Brasil. O trabalho busca articular teoria linguística de orientação gerativista e processamento linguístico. Estudos de orientação gerativista, baseados, principalmente, em julgamentos de aceitabilidade, sustentam que os pronomes resumptivos envolvem custo nas interfaces (pronomes como estratégias de último recurso - ROSS, 1967; SELLS, 1984; SHLONSKY, 1992; HORNSTEIN, 2001; GROLLA, 2005). Do ponto de vista do processamento, sua ocorrência está relacionada a situações não planejadas (FERREIRA e SWETS, 2005; CORRÊA et al., 2018) e a contextos de alto custo, que tornam o antecedente menos acessível (ARIEL, 1999): distância entre elemento anafórico e antecedente, posição sintática do elemento anafórico, natureza e características do antecedente, etc. No Português do Brasil, os pronomes resumptivos permanecem como estrutura marginal, embora sejam licenciados em diferentes posições sintáticas (TARALLO, 1988; LESSADE- OLIVEIRA, 2008,2009; RIBEIRO, 2009; MIRANDA, 2005). Pretendemos investigar, por meio de uma metodologia experimental, possíveis fatores de custos associados à compreensão dessas estruturas. Reportam-se quatro experimentos: dois de julgamento de aceitabilidade e dois de escuta automonitorada. No primeiro, contrastou-se a aceitabilidade de relativas padrão vs resumptivas na posição de sujeito e em outras posições mais complexas (objeto direto, objeto preposicionado e genitivo), em que há sempre um elemento interveniente (FRIEDMANN, BELLETTI e RIZZI, 2009). No segundo experimento, foi avaliada a aceitabilidade de relativas padrão, cortadoras e resumptivas nas posições de oblíquo e genitivo. Os resultados mostraram uma preferência pela estratégia padrão. Resumptivos foram altamente rejeitados na posição de sujeito e apresentaram notas bem distribuídas pela escala nas demais posições investigadas. O terceiro e quarto experimentos avaliaram o processo de compreensão de relativas padrão e resumptivas (experimento 3) e de cortadoras e resumptivas (experimento 4) em função da posição sintática ocupada pelo elemento anafórcio (pronome/lacuna) e da distância linear (curta, média e longa) entre os elementos correferentes na compreensão de relativas. Nesses dois experimentos, observou-se que os pronomes resumptivos tornam o processamento mais rápido quando fatores adicionais de custo são evidentes (intervenção de DP e/ou distância linear). Na posição de sujeito, em que não há efeito de interveniência, os resumptivos tornaram o processamento mais fácil em distância longa, convergindo com os estudos de corpora (MOLLICA, 2003) e com o princípio da acessibilidade (ARIEL, 1999). Na posição de objeto direto, foram encontrados resultados significativos para distância curta (quando há somente o DP interveniente) e distância longa. Nas posições de oblíquo e genitivo, relativas resumptivas apresentam tempo de escuta menor e, à medida que a distância linear aumenta, o processamento de resumptivas se torna mais rápido que das cortadoras. Em conjunto, os experimentos mostram que, a despeito de os resumptivos terem sido menos aceitos que a estratégia padrão, eles não parecem comprometer o processo de compreensão, podendo servir como elementos facilitadores em situações de alta demanda, em termos de distância linear e de pouca acessibilidade do antecedente. / [en] This thesis investigates the comprehension of resumptive relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese. The study seeks to reconcile a linguistic theory grounded in generativism and language processing. Generativism-guided studies based mainly on acceptability judgment tasks support that resumptive pronouns have cost at the interfaces (pronouns as last resource strategy - ROSS, 1967; SELLS, 1984; SHLONSKY, 1992; HORNSTEIN, 2001; GROLLA, 2005). From the point of view of processing, its occurrence is related to non-planned situations (FERREIRA e SWETS, 2005; CORRÊA et al., 2018) and to high-cost contexts, being licensed in whenever the antecedent less accessible (ARIEL, 1999), when distance between the anaphoric element and its antecedent is too long, syntactic position of the anaphoric element, the nature and features of the antecedent etc. In Brazilian Portuguese, resumptive pronouns remain a marginal structure, although they are licensed in different syntactic positions (TARALLO, 1988; LESSA DE OLIVEIRA, 2008,2009; RIBEIRO, 2009; MIRANDA, 2005). We intend to investigate, through an experimental methodology, the possible costs of resumptives related to comprehension. We conducted four experiments: two acceptability judgment tasks, and two self-paced listening tasks. In the first one, it was contrasted the acceptability of standard vs resumptive strategies in subject position and in other more complex positions (direct object, prepositional object, and genitive) in which there is always an intervening element (FRIEDMANN, BELLETTI e RIZZI, 2009). In the second experiment, the acceptability of standard, chopped and resumptive relatives in oblique and genitive positions was evaluated. The results showed a preference for the standard strategy. Resumptives were highly rejected in subject position and had quite spread values through the scale in the other examined positions. The third and fourth experiments evaluated the comprehension process of standard and resumptive relatives (experiment 3) and of chopped and resumptive relatives (experiment 4), according to the syntactic position of the pronoun/gap and to the linear distance (short, middle, long) between the coreferent elements. In these two experiments, it was observed that resumptive pronouns seem to make processing faster when additional cost factors are added (intervention effects and linear distance). In the subject position, in which there is no intervention effect, resumptives made processing easier in long distance contexts. This result is in accordance with corpora studies (MOLLICA, 2003) and with the accessibility principle (ARIEL, 1999). In the direct object position, it was found significative results on short and long distance. In oblique and genitive positions, resumptive relatives have shorter listening times than chopped relatives, and as linear distance increases, the processing of resumptive relatives become faster than that of chopped ones. Taken together the experiments show that, despite resumptives being less acceptable than standard strategy, they do not compromise the process of comprehension, being able to act as a facilitator element in high-demand situations, in terms of linear distance and little accessibility of the antecedent.