On the “Surprising” That-Trace Effect and an Issue on Data Treatment
Megumi Hasebe, Hideki Maki, and Fumikazu Niinuma
Gifu University, Gifu University, and Morioka University
This paper re-examines three cases of the (non-)that-trace effect in English andJapanese, and considers what the results suggest. The three cases are shown in (1-3).
(1)

The That-Subject Trace Effecta.
Who do you think [Amy saw t]?
b.
Who do you think [t saw Amy]?
c.
Who do you think [that Amy saw t]?
d.
*
Who do you think [that t saw Amy]?

(2)

The That-Adjunct Trace Effecta.
Why did Fay say [the boat sank t]?
b.
*
Why did Fay say [that the boat sank t]?
(AHLW (1987))(3)

The Non-That-Adjunct Trace EffectBill-wa [John-ga naze kubi-ni natta to] itta no?
-Top-Nom why was.fired
C said Q‘Why did Bill say John was fired?’(L&S (1984)))First, (1d) is a typical case of the that-subject trace effect. Second, according to AHLW
(1987), while (2a) is OK, (2b) is out. We call this the that-adjunct trace effect. This effectseems to be observed in a variety of English, but not the others. Third, according to L&S(1984), naze ‘why’ in the embedded clause can be interpreted at the matrix [+Q] COMP, anddoes not show the that-adjunct trace effect.
First, given the grammaticality judgments on the examples in (1), it will be expectedthat the pattern in (1d) is worse than the patterns in (1a-c), which are equally acceptable. To
our knowledge, no linguist has ever questioned it. In this study, we tested whether thisprediction was really correct by using the Visual Analogue Scaling evaluation method. A totalof 39 native speakers of English participated in this study. We used 8 test sentences for eachof patterns (1a-d). We made two questionnaires, each of which contained 50 sentences in total,
with 16 test sentences and 34 fillers, and a counterbalanced design was used. We used thescale (100 mm long) in (4).
(4)

Totally unnatural |____________________________| Completely natural
as English
as English

The average scores on the 4 patterns are shown in (5).
(5)

The Average Scores on the 4 Patterns
PatternAverage SDa.

object trace without that

96.66

6.56

b.

subject trace without that

96.40

8.53
1c.

object trace with that

71.94

22.06

d.

subject trace with that

44.90

27.76

We conducted a 1x4 ANOVA, and found a statistically significant difference among the4 patterns (F(3,36)=44.90, p<.05). We then conducted multiple comparisons (Bonferroni),and found statistically significant differences among (5a-b) >* (5c) >* (5d) (*statisticalsignificance threshold, p<.05). The finding that (5a-b) >* (5c-d) indicates a “surprising” thattrace effect: extraction of a wh-phrase from a clause headed by that is worse than that from aclause headed by a null complementizer, whether or not the wh-phrase originates from thesubject or the object position.
Second, this unexpected that-trace effect, however, may represent a psychological stateof the native speaker of English, which does not directly appear in the grammaticality
judgment scale based on the dichotomy between OK and *. Although AHLW (1987) do notprovide any comparison between pattern (5a) and pattern (5c), if the “surprising” that-trace
effect is a reflection of the native speaker’s psychological state, it will give an automatic
explanation for the ungrammaticality of (2b), a case of the that-adjunct trace effect, in thevariety of English which AHLW (1987) deal with.
Third, the fact that (2b) is out in a variety of English makes us re-consider the status of(3) in (a variety of) Japanese. The simple sentence with naze ‘why,’ such as (6a), is given ananswer such as (6b).
(6)

a.

b.

John-wa naze kubi-ni natta no?
-Top why was.firedQ‘Why was John fired?’
Jooshi-no okane-onusunda kara (desu).
boss-Gen money-Acc stole
because be‘(It is) because he stole his boss’ money.’

However, a careful examination of (3) indicates that it cannot be given the answer in (6b).
Other examples such as (7) also show the same point: (7a) cannot be given the answer in (7b).
(7)

a.

b.

Kimi-wa [John-ga naze taihosareta to]
you-Top-Nom why was.arrested C
shuchooshiteru/shinjiteru/omotteru no?
claim/believe/thinkQ‘Why do you claim/believe/think John was fired?’Kaki-onusunda kara(desu).
persimmon-Acc stole
because be‘(It is) because he stole persimmons.’

This will be made clearer, if we take into account cleft sentences with naze ‘why.’ Consider
(8).
(8)

*Bill-ga[John-gat kubi-ni natta to] itta no-wa naze desu ka?
-Nom-Nom was.fired
C said NO-Top why be Q
‘Why is it that Bill said John was fired?’(8), which is considered to involve long-distance movement of some sort, just like naze ‘why’in-situ in (3), is actually ungrammatical. Therefore, the non-that-adjunct trace effect in2

Japanese has turned out to fall under the “surprising” that-trace effect in (a variety of)Japanese.
The present paper has thus shown that one cannot be too careful when examining anddrawing conclusions from linguistic data.

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