It depends: Optionality in the production of filler-gap dependencies

This study investigates the language production mechanisms underlying the creation of filler-gap dependencies (e.g., relative clauses: This is the boy that the girl from Norway saw_ yesterday), which require speakers to establish an argument-predicate relationship between a phrase, the ‘filler’, (the boy) and a further embedded predicate (saw). We show that filler-gap dependency production involves the retention of a representation of the filler...