COMPREHENSION OF SLUICED SENTENCES

We report two reading experiments and two questionnaire studies design ed to investigate the processing of ''sluiced'' sentences, like Somebo dy left-guess who. A self-paced reading experiment showed that sentenc es with explicit (overt) antecedents are read more quickly than senten ces with implicit (covert) antecedents, both when the antecedents in q uestion were arguments and when they were adjuncts. An eye movement ex periment showed that sluiced sentences containing two potential antece dents were read faster than sentences containing only a single anteced ent in matrix subject position. We suggest this is because only the am biguous sentences contained an antecedent in a normal focus position ( embedded object position). Two questionnaire studies suggested that pe rceivers prefer a focused constituent as the antecedent of the sluiced constituent. Since we argue that the interpretation of a sluiced cons tituent take place at the representational level of ''logical form'' ( LF), we conclude that implicit arguments are not made explicit at LF b ut that focus is important in the processing of LF.