Experimental evidence for a minimalist account of English resumptive pronouns

In this article we provide evidence for a Minimalist account of English-typ e resumptive pronouns. Our findings provide empirical support for syntactic theories that, like Minimalist accounts, allow for competition among deriv ations. According to our account, resumptive pronouns are spell-outs of tra ces. For reasons of economy, the resumptive pronoun surfaces only when the derivation with the trace is precluded by syntactic principles. This accoun t predicts that resumptive pronouns should only improve violations of const raints on representation, and not violations of constraints on movement. We tested this prediction by conducting an acceptability judgment task with 3 6 native speakers of English. The results bore out our prediction; subjects preferred the resumptive pronoun over the trace in cases where the trace i tself was illicit, but not in cases where only the movement operation was i llicit. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.