How long can you hold the filler: Maintenance and retrieval

This study attempts to reveal the mechanisms behind the online formation of Wh-Filler-Gap Dependencies(WhFGD). Specifically, we aim to uncover how maintenance and retrieval work in WhFGD processing b ypaying special attention to the information associated with the wh-filler that is retrieved when the gap is recognized. We use the agreement attraction phenomenon (Pearlmutter, Garnsey & Bock, 1999; Wagers etal., 2009) as a probe. The first and second experiments examined the type of information that is maintained and how maintenance is motivated, investigating the retrieved information at the gap for reactivated fillers and definite NPs. The third experiment examined the role of the retrieval associated with reactivated and active fillers. We contend that the information being accessed reflects the extent to which the filler is maintained, where the reader is able to access fine-grained information including category information as well as a representation of both the head and the modifier at the verb. This suggests that both retrieval and maintenance components play a role in resolving online whFGD (Fiebach et al., 2002; Wagers &Phillips, 2014) and for parsing at large.