Resumption in Mandarin Topicalization: An Auditory-Based Experimental Study

This study investigates the behavior of resumptive pronouns (RPs) in topicalization, a less-explored A-bar dependency type, through two auditory judgment experiments conducted in Mandarin Chinese. This work systematically examines the grammatical and processing properties of RP in topicalization, filling a gap in the literature. Experiment 1 investigates RP in non-island (complement) environments, revealing two key findings: (1) RP is available in Mandarin topicalization even in non-island contexts, (2) while RP exhibits a facilitation effect compared to gaps, RP remains subject to a negative distance effect, contrasting with previous studies on other dependencies (e.g., wh-questions), which suggested RP resists distance effects. Experiment 2 examines RP in island contexts, showing that while RPs are sensitive to island effects, they partially ameliorate island violations compared to gapped constructions. This suggests that RPs are still involved in the movement mechanism akin to gaps but also introduce an extra-grammatical effect that enhances the acceptability of island-violating sentences.