Acceptability of Parasitic Gap Constructions

鹿児島女子大学文学部　時本真吾

This report examines the acceptability of various parasitic gap constructions. Judgments on 100 parasitics gap constructions are collected with questionnaires from fifteen native speakers of English. The judgments are analyzed by multiple regression analysis. On the basis of the analysis, this report claims that plural syntactic constraints simultaneously bear with different weights on the acceptability of parasitic gap constructions. A linear equation that predicts the acceptability of a given parasitic gap construction is proposed. As a general implication, this report suggests that syntactic constraints as part of the language faculty are additive and with different importance.