In this project, we investigate three constructions that have proven
problematic for standard formulations of grammatical constraints on
dependencies – these constructions should be ruled out by standard
formulations of the constraints, but have been reported to be (relatively)
acceptable. In this project we ask two questions. First, we ask whether
these constructions show the pattern of unacceptability that is typically
taken to indicate the presence of a constraint (i.e., island effects). We
use a 7-point acceptability judgment study, and the factorial definition of
island effects that is standard in the literature (in which the island
effect appears as a superadditive interaction). We test both the three
apparently exceptional constructions in (1) and their structurally-similar,
standard island effect counterparts in (2) so that we can compare effect
sizes and relative acceptability. Second, we ask whether the island effects
that we see for these three exceptional constructions can be explained by
the working-memory capacity approach to island effects (Kluender and Kutas
1993, Hofmeister and Sag 2010) by correlating participants’ judgment
responses to their performance on a standard reading span (working memory)
task.