Paper

Processing Advantages of End-weight

---

Abstract

Previous research has established that English end-weight configurations, where sentence components of greater grammatical complexity appear at the ends of sentences, demonstrate processing advantages over alternative word orders. To evaluate these processing advantages, I analyze how a Minimalist Grammar (MG) parser generates syntactic structures for different word orders. The parser\'s behavior suggests that end-weight configurations require fewer memory resources for parsing than alternative structures. This memory load difference accounts for the end-weight advantage in processing. The results highlight the validity of the MG processing approach as a linking theory connecting syntactic structures to behavioral observations. Additionally, the results have implications on the structure and processing of languages where an ``initial-weight\'\' is preferred.

How to Cite:

Liu, L., (2023) “Processing Advantages of End-weight”, Society for Computation in Linguistics 6(1), 250-258. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/7etw-rj24