Heaviness vs. newness: The effects of structural complexity and discourse status on constituent ordering

Variations in postverbal constituent ordering have been attributed to both grammatical complexity (heaviness) and discourse status (neu ness), althoug h few studies compare the two factors explicitly. Through corpus analysis a nd experimentation, we demonstrate that both factors simultaneously and ind ependently influence word order in two English constructions. while past in vestigations of these factors have focused on their effects in language com prehension, we argue that postponing heavy and new constituents facilitates processes of planning and production.*