Processing complexity and filler-gap dependencies across grammars

This article examines crosslinguistic variation in FILLER-GAF DEPENDENCIES (WH-questions and relative clauses) from a processing perspective, and inte grates research findings from psycholinguistics, language typology and gene rative grammar. Numerous implicational universals and hierarchies are propo sed that receive a natural explanation in terms of processing and complexit y. Filler-gap domains are complex in proportion to their size and in propor tion to the amount of simultaneous syntactic and semantic processing that i s required in addition to gap identification. They are simplified by making the gap easier to identify and process, or by avoiding a gap structure alt ogether. When grammatical variation is viewed from this perspective many de scriptive insights and implicational patterns can be motivated that have ei ther been stipulated or that have gone unnoticed hitherto. This approach pr ovides an alternative to the assumption of innate parameterized subjacency constraints in this area.*