(42) Word order and focus effect on European Portuguese sentence processing

This study focuses on the research of sentence processing in European Portuguese, a null Subject (SU) Romance language, which has SVO as the basic order, but allows other patterns with SU in postverbal position. Structures such as VSO or VOS are been interpreted as sentences that exhibited informational focus (Âmbar, 1992; Costa, 1998, 2000; Mateus et al., 2003). In these conditions, we have a syntactic strategy to point out the focused constituent in the default position for unmarked focus, the rightmost embedded position (Zubizarreta, 1998). On the other hand, cleft sentences exhibited a contrastive focus and consequently, the focused constituent should precede the verb. In our research, we compare the effect of linguistic cues considered to have high validity in the assignment of the semantic interpretation of the sentence. The participants' processing task was to assign the semantic function of the effector (Van Valin & Wilkins, 1996) in four different conditions: canonical sentences (1); declarative transitive sentences with postverbal SU (2); SU and Object cleft sentences (3 and 4). Decision accuracy and decision times were recorded using PsyScope for Macintosh (Cohen et al, 1993).

The results concerning the postverbal SU sentences indicate a preference for the VOS interpretation, i.e., the NP with morphological and semantic features appropriate to receive the thematic role of the effector elicits lower reaction times and higher acuity, when occupying the final position: 1334ms vs. 1475ms. In what concerns the SU cleft sentences, NP/SU elicits a reaction time of 1421ms, whereas in the Object cleft ones, the NP/SU present a higher reaction time: 1987ms. NP/SU in canonical sentences shows an average time of 1359ms. We explain the accessibility of the SU in informational focus position as a combined effect of the focus position with the adoption of an economic strategy. In the first analysis this strategy prefers the structure proVO over VS(XP) and, only secondly, VOS. In the Object cleft sentences, the lower accessibility of the SU is a result of a combined effect of syntactical and semantic constraints. In addition to a pattern of word order where the Object is in preverbal position, there is a restrictive focus in an out of the blue context.

(1)	O João empurrou a Maria.
	John pushed Mary.
(2)	Empurrou o João a Maria.
	Pushed John Mary.
(3)	Foi o João que empurrou a Maria.
	It was John who pushed Mary.
(4)	Foi o João que a Maria empurrou.
	It was Mary that John pushed.