The effects of syntactic pressures and pragmatic considerations on predictive dependency formation

During sentence processing, comprehenders form predictions regarding the unfolding of the sentence. The current study is designed to tease apart the role of syntactic motivations, pragmatic considerations and contextual prediction in active dependency formation. Using both production and comprehension measures, we observe prediction for the resolution of a long-distance dependency, even in the absence of syntactic-licensing pressures. However, we find that predictive dependency formation is observed earlier when it is motivated by syntactic pressures. This suggests that the syntax plays a crucial role in this predictive process, even after controlling for pragmatic motivations. We propose that active dependency formation is faster or more binding in syntactically-motivated predictions (i.e. filler-gap dependencies) relative to pragmatically-motivated ones.