A Prosody Analysis of the Comp-trace Effect

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new analysis of the Comp-trace effect. We first review previous literature from various disciplines and pose challenges to them. Then, we argue that a slight revision of Kandybowicz’s (2006, 2009) approach captures the widest range of empirical data on Comp-trace effects, including Adverb effects, Intonation focus effects, Trace deletion effects, and complementizer-dependent mitigation effects. In addition to the Kandybowicz’s original prosodic condition which constrains the complementizer not to be adjacent to the trace within same prosodic boundary, we add another condition to resolve overgeneration problems, triggered by prosody patterns of whether. We note that Kandybowicz (2006, 2009) fails to account for the relative clause paradox. Adopting Kim’s (2008) analysis, we argue that nature of the paradox is not in the narrow syntax central, but in discourse functions: the overt realization of that depends on whether it introduces a clause to the addressee.