This thesis investigates and documents the existence of preposition stranding in a dialect of Canadian French. The French spoken in the small Franco-Ontarian town of Lafontaine (LFF) allows prepositions to be stranded (i.e. without a following overt complement) in various scenarios. Taking bona fide P-stranding to be derivable only via leftward movement of prepositional complements, I show that LFF has true P-stranding equivalent to that observed in English. I argue that although LFF parallels Standard French in having orphan prepositions–where this phenomenon is best analyzed as non-movement derived P-stranding with the gap following the preposition being the instantiation of a null pronoun (Authier 2016; Zribi-Hertz 1984)–it is incontrovertible that P-stranding takes place under syntactic movement in LFF (e.g. wh-movement). Following Abels (2003b, 2012), I assume that prepositions constitute phase heads and their complements cannot be extracted without violating the principle of anti-locality. My central argument in this thesis is that in order to void violations of anti-locality, PPs in P-stranding languages must contain an extra layer of structure between prepositions and their complements in order to allow extraction. Evidence for this extra layer of structure is found in LFF in the form of the invariant morpheme de-nwhich appears on the prepositions dans, sur and sous when these are used in stranding constructions (e.g. dedans). Again, following Abels (2012), I label the de- element that appears on these prepositions under stranding as a ‘DR-morpheme’; this morpheme constitutes the head of a DRP which intervenes between prepositions and their complements, allowing extraction. I further show that evidence for the existence of bona fide P-stranding in LFF comes in the form of the ability to strand prepositions under ellipsis in this dialect. LFF, like English, allows prepositions to be stranded in swiping constructions, where swiping is a sub form of sluicing wherein a prepositions and its wh-complement surface in inverse order (e.g. `who from’/qui de) as the sole remnants of ellipsis. Given the existence of swiping in LFF, I discuss certain ramifications this has for current theories of sluicing and swiping, ultimately arguing that swiping in LFF is best analyzed as being derived via deleting prosodically redundant material between a wh-phrase which has moved to the left periphery, and its selecting preposition which has been left stranded in its base position.

<p>This study examines to what extent preposition stranding is used in connection with which, whom and who in three different UK papers. Also what factors influence the use of preposition stranding has been studied. The hypothesis that pied-piping is more common than preposition stranding has been confirmed.</p><p>A factor that has a certain influence on the use of preposition stranding is the style of the paper. The more formal of the papers studied, The Times, did not use preposition stranding to the same extent as the other two, The Sun and Today.</p><p>The subject domain of the texts has influence on the use of preposition stranding, with more informal domains such as sports and miscellaneous (e.g. gossip) using stranding to a higher extent than the other domains, e.g. business, politics and culture. The prepositions themselves also influence the use of preposition stranding with some prepositions, such as on, with, for and into, that are likely to appear stranded and others, such as in that are likely to appear pied-piped.</p>

This study examines to what extent preposition stranding is used in connection with which, whom and who in three different UK papers. Also what factors influence the use of preposition stranding has been studied. The hypothesis that pied-piping is more common than preposition stranding has been confirmed. A factor that has a certain influence on the use of preposition stranding is the style of the paper. The more formal of the papers studied, The Times, did not use preposition stranding to the same extent as the other two, The Sun and Today. The subject domain of the texts has influence on the use of preposition stranding, with more informal domains such as sports and miscellaneous (e.g. gossip) using stranding to a higher extent than the other domains, e.g. business, politics and culture. The prepositions themselves also influence the use of preposition stranding with some prepositions, such as on, with, for and into, that are likely to appear stranded and others, such as in that are likely to appear pied-piped.

One of the prominent questions in modern psycholinguistics is the relationship between the grammar and the parser. Within the approach of Generative Grammar, this issue has been investigated in terms of the role that Principles of Universal Grammar may play in language processing. The aim of this research experiment is to investigate this topic. Specifically, this experiment aims to test whether the Minimal Structure Principle (MSP) plays a role in the processing of Preposition-Stranding versus Pied-Piped Constructions. This investigation is made with a self-paced reading task, an on-line processing test that measures participants’ unconscious reaction to language stimuli. Monolingual English speakers’ reading times of sentences with Preposition-Stranding and Pied-Piped Constructions are compared. Results indicate that neither construction has greater processing costs, suggesting that factors other than the MSP are active during language processing.

[pt] Esta dissertação aborda um fenômeno pouco estudado no Português Brasileiro (PB): o sluicing, fenômeno no qual o sintagma de tempo (TP) de uma estrutura encabeçada por um elemento –QU é elidido, deixando explícito apenas o elemento –QU. Merchant (2001) argumenta que o sluicing envolve movimento –QU e apagamento do TP, e que disso segue a generalização, segundo a qual uma língua permitirá encalhamento de preposição no sluicing se o permite em sentenças simples. Almeida & Yoshida (2007) argumentam que o PB falseia essa generalização por permitir encalhamento de preposição em sluicing, mas não em sentenças simples. Rodrigues et al. (2009), todavia, propõe que existem duas raízes para o sluicing no PB: sluicing regular e pseudosluicing, sendo que o encalhamento de preposição ocorreria apenas nessas estruturas. A presente dissertação investiga a proposta de Rodrigues et al. (2009), por meio de experimento de juízo de gramaticalidade e metodologia experimental, para verificar relações entre apagamento de preposição e tipo de estrutura. Os resultados corroboram a proposta de Rodrigues et al. (2009), e apontam para uma restrição de identidade de ordem semântica entre o constituinte elidido e seu antecedente. Nossa conclusão sugere que: os dados PB não falseiam a generalização de Merchant; identidade semântica é suficiente para licenciar processos de elisão. Esse fenômeno é investigado à luz de uma proposta de integração entre a teoria linguística de vertente gerativista e a psicolinguística, proposta que tem caracterizado as pesquisas desenvolvidas no Laboratório de Psicolinguística e Aquisição da Linguagem (LAPAL) da PUC-Rio. / [en] This dissertation discusses an understudied phenomenon in Brazilian Portuguese (BP): sluicing, a phenomenon in which the tense phrase (TP) of a structure headed by an interrogative pronoun (-QU) is elided, leaving only the explicit -QU. Merchant (2001) argues that sluicing involves –wh movement and deletion in the phonological form of TP, and proposes the following generalization: a language L will allow preposition stranding in sentences with sluicing iff L allows this stranding in simple sentences. Almeida and Yoshida (2007) argue that the Brazilian Portuguese distorts this generalization as it allows preposition stranding in sluicing, but not in simple sentences. In contrast, Rodrigues et al. (2009) proposes that there are two processes of sluicing in Brazilian Portuguese: regular sluicing and pseudosluicing, with preposition stranding occurring only in these structures. This dissertation investigates the proposal of Rodrigues et al. (2009), leading a grammaticality judgment experiment and using experimental methodology in order to verify deletion relations between preposition and type of structure. The results support the proposal of Rodrigues et al. (2009), and point to a semantic identity between the elided constituent and its antecedent. Our findings suggest that: the Brazilian Portuguese data does not distort Merchant s generalization; and, semantic identity is sufficient for licensing elision processes. This phenomenon is investigated in light of an integrated proposal between generative linguistic theory and psycholinguistics, a proposal that has characterized the research being developed at the Laboratory of Psycholinguistics and Language Acquisition (LAPAL) at PUC-Rio.