ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the central ideas of Adaptation Theory (AT) and some of the evidence, both older and more recent, and some of its critiques. The chapter explains Slow Syntax, an emergent theory which, like AT, has the premise of slow processing. Pinango's studies on unaccusative and psych verbs have argued against the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH) focus on syntactic movement and trace deletion and the intervention of a cognitive strategy when syntax fails. Pinango used the comprehension of sentences with unaccusative and psych verbs as test cases for her hypothesis that not movement but the consequence of movement, the non-canonical arrangement of the arguments of the verb, is the reason for asyntactic comprehension deficits in agrammatism. Reflexives can only be interpreted as a bound variable because a discourse operation of co-reference option does not exist for reflexives. Logophoric reflexives behave differently from non-logophoric reflexives and are not constrained by the Binding Conditions.