Psychology
2011. Vol.2, No.6, 560-567
Copyright © 2011 SciRes. DOI:10.4236/psych.2011.26086
The Processing of Dui-construction in Chinese*
Yong Zhai
Faculty of Humanities, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Received May 23rd, 2011; revised June 28th, 2011; accepted August 7th, 2011.
In the presen t study, I examined the Dui-construction fro m a psycholinguistic perspective. Two experiments on the
processing of Dui-constructions h ave been carried out to reexamine the findings of previous ex periments on empty
subjects in English and Japanese. There are two advantages of using the Chinese Dui-construction over English and
Japanese. Firstly, Chinese is similar to English in tha t the verb is loca ted before the e mpty subject of an infinitival
clause. It is therefore possible to verify whether the verb control information is delayed or not in this case. Secondly,
Chinese is similar to Japanes e in that they both allow scrambl ing of arguments. As such, I can e xamine whether th e
recency hypo thes is applies to Chines e or not. The resul ts indicated that 1) The control information of the verb is ac-
cessed immediately; 2) The recency hypothesis is not supported in the processing of Dui-constructions. In other
words, there exists a language-specific processing system independent of the general recency strategy.
Keywords: Dui-construction, Recency Hypothesis, Control Information, Chinese
Introduction
A human parser processes a string of linguistic elements that
are continuously given along the temporal sequence, and un-
derstands the information transmitted by the given string. The
parser identifies each component, establishes the relationship
between components, and decides the meaning of the entire
string. Various researches have been conducted to shed light on
the process of the human parser (cf. Sakamoto 1998, Inoue &
Fodor 1995, Aoshima et al. 2004). In the psycholinguistic lit-
erature, the question of what types of information guide the
initial parsing decision has been the focus. One of the factors is
the effect of lexical information (Ford et al. 1982, MacDonald
et al. 1994, Trueswell & Tanenhaus 1994, Miyamoto 2002). A
lot of researches support the immediate use of such lexical in-
formation (Inoue & Fodor 1995, Kamide & Mitchell 1999,
Miyamoto 2002, Aoshima et al. 2004).
There is one type of lexical information that is called ‘control
information’, which determines how a particular verb influ-
ences the interpretation of the subject of infinitival (and gerun-
dive) complements. Consider the following examples adapted
from Chomsky (1981).
(1) a. Johni promised Bill [PROi to feed himself].
b. *Maryi promised Bill [PROi to feed himself].
(2) a. John persuaded Billi [PROi to feed himself].
b. *John persuaded Maryi [PROi to feed him s e lf].
In (1a) and (2a), the subject of the verb promise is assumed
to be the understood subject of the infinitival clause, while the
object of the verb persuade is considered to be the understood
subject of the infinitival clause. At the subject position of the
infinitival clause, Chomsky (1981) posits the empty category
PRO, which is an abstract syntactic element with no phonetic
content. PRO must establish a relationship with an antecedent
in order to acquire its meaning. This coreference is determined
by a relationship called ‘control’. When PRO appears in an
infinitival complement clause, one of the arguments in the ma-
trix clause must be understood as its antecedent (controller).
Whether the controller is the subject or the object of the matrix
clause depends on the intrinsic lexical properties of that verb.
The ungrammatical versions (1b) and (2b) show clearly that
promise is a subject control verb and persuade is an object
control verb.
The study of PRO is interesting for various reasons. Firstly,
it lacks phonological realization, so that it escapes the physical
perception. Secondly, it does not involve a moved element (NP-
trace or wh-trace), so readers have no warning of the empty
element downstream in the sentence. Finally, PRO, as an ana-
phoric element, needs to be linked to an antecedent. These spe-
cial features of PRO provide an attractive structure to test pre-
dictions made by different syntactic processing models. None-
theless, the empirical evidence on how readers resolve PRO
on-line is far from conclusive (Betancort et al. 2005). Currently,
related experiments have only been performed on a limited
number of languages, such as English and Japanese, and the
experimental methods and data are also inadequate. There is
therefore room for more in-depth research.
The findings of previous experiments on control structures in
English differ from those of Japanese. The present study is
concerned with the reexamination of the different results in
English and Japanese by using the Dui-construction in Chinese.
Dui-Construction in Chinese
In Chinese linguistics, Dui-construction seems to be rela-
tively disregarded, though the other prepositional constructions,
such as ba-construction and bei-construction are widely dis-
cussed. If we take a closer look, however, we will find that the
Dui-construction actually has an interesting structure. Dui-con-
struction is similar to the ba-construction and bei-construction
in that the noun can be put ahead of the verb by using the words
dui, ba, and bei. In addition, Dui-construction can also be put at
the beginning of a sentence, whereas this is not possible with
the ba- or bei-construction, as shown in the following exam-
ples.
(3) a. Weiyuanhui diaocha zhege wenti.
NP1 V NP2
committee investigate this problem
‘The committee investigates thi s p ro bl em.’
(adapted from Wang 1998)
*This work has received support from Japanese Grant-in-Aid for Scientific
Research
(
C
)
17520269. b. Weiyuanhui dui zhege wenti

Y. ZHAI 561
committee PREP this problem
zhengzai diaocha.
PROGRES investigate
‘The committee is investigating this problem.’
(adapted from Wang 1998)
Employing a speeded comprehension task, Frazier, Clifton
and Randall (1983) examined English control structures to de-
termine the strategy used by the parser to identify the antece-
dent of the subordinate empty subject. Readers are provided
with a word-by-word sentence presentation, and they need to
make a sentence-final “got it” or “missed it” decision. The ex-
perimental sentences such as (7) to (10) are manipulated ac-
cording to the type of main verb (subject vs. object control) and
the ambiguity of the sentences with respect to the verb control
information (ambiguous control vs. unambiguous control).
c. Dui zhege wenti weiyuanhui
PREP this problem committee
zhengzai diaocha.
PROGRES investigate
‘To this problem, the committee is investigating.’
(4) a. Wo chi pingguo.
NP1 V NP2
I eat apple
‘I eat apple.’
b. Wo ba pingguo chi le.
I v apple eat PAST
‘I ate this apple.’
c. *Ba pingguo wo chi le.
(5) a. Ta da wo.
NP1 V NP2
he hit me
‘He hits me.’
b. Wo bei ta da le.
I v him hit PAST
‘I was hit by him.’
c. *Bei ta wo da le.
In (3a), (4a), and (5a), the structure of the sentences is [NP1 +
V + NP2]. It is well known that Chinese is an SVO language.
However, it also allows an SOV order by using words such as
dui, ba, or bei (Okouchi 1992; Wang 1998). In (3b),(4b), (5b),
using the words dui, ba, or bei, the structure of the sentences
becomes [NP + NP +V]. In contrast, (3c) is grammatical, while
(4c) and (5c) are ungrammatical. That is to say, the marker dui
in the Dui-construction can be placed at the beginning of the
sentence, but not so for the ba and bei markers in the ba- and
bei-constructions.
In previous studies, dui, ba, and bei have been treated as
prepositions. From the difference highlighted above, we think
that dui is a preposition, while ba and bei should be light verbs.
In the following, we will focus on dui only.
From (3b), the preposition dui is inserted to assign case to
the NP2 that is moved to a preverbal position. The structure of
(3b) is shown in (6) (cf. Wang 1998).
As discussed above, Dui-construction has two characteristics.
First of all, it allows the [NP1 NP2 V] structure. Secondly, the
marker dui can be placed at the beginning of the Dui-construc-
tion. These two points are very attractive, and they have not
been studied at all in the psycholinguistics literature. In the
following sections, we will investigate Dui-construction from a
psycholinguistic perspective.
(6) TP
NP T’
PP T’
P’ Adv T’
T VP
P NP
j V NPj
Weiyuanhui dui zhegewenti zhengzai INFL diaocha
Processing of Empty Subject in English
(7) Recent filler (subject control), unambiguous
Everyone liked the woman who1 the little child2 started
[PRO2 to sing those stupid French songs for trace1 last
Christmas].
(8) Distant filler (object control), unambiguous
Everyone liked the woman who1 the little child forced
trace1 [PRO1 to sing those stupid French songs last
Christmas].
(9) Recent filler (subject control), ambiguous
Everyone liked the woman who1 the little child2 begged
[PRO2 to sing those stupid French songs for trace1 last
Christmas].
(10) Distant filler (object control), ambiguous
Everyone liked the woman who1 the little child begged
trace1 [PRO1 to sing those stupid French songs last
Christmas].
The reaction times (RTs) were faster for (7) and (9) than for (8)
and (10). In the recent filler unambiguous sentences (7), the
verb start, a subject control verb, indicates that its subject the
little child is the controller of PRO. Notice that among the two
fillers, the woman and the little child, the latter is closer to the
empty subject PRO. Hence, the actual filler is also the more
recent filler. In the distant filler unambiguous sentences (8), the
verb force, an object control verb, assigns its object the woman
as the controller of PRO. Here, the correct filler is more distant
among the two fillers. Frazier et al. hypothesize that recency is
a factor for identifying the antecedent, so that a more recent
filler is preferred over a more distant one. Hence, the sentences
in which the recent filler is also the actual filler will produce
faster RTs in a “got it” comprehension task than the sentences
in which the recent filler is not the actual filler. Frazier et al.
explain these findings with the application of the Most Recent
Filler Strategy (MRFS), which is stated as follows (p. 196):
(11) Most Recent Filler Strategy: During language comprehen-
sion a detected gap is initially and quickly taken to be
co-indexed with the most recent potential filler.
Since the same result is found in both the ambiguous and un-
ambiguous sentences, Frazier et al. imply that the MRFS ap-
plies only when the parser does not have reliable information
about the correct filler for PRO. In the absence of lexical verb
control information, the MRFS is claimed to apply. This re-
cency strategy assigns the nearest potential filler to PRO. This
initial choice by the parser is later checked by the control in-
formation. It is this error-correcting procedure that causes the
longer processing time in the distant filler sentences. Further-
more, if trace is a possible filler, it will not produce any RT
difference between (7) and (8), because trace is the nearest
filler for PRO in (8). Hence, Frazier et al. assume that the
parser does not recognize trace as a possible filler for PRO. In
other words, the parser does not recognize a gap as a filler for

Y. ZHAI 562
another gap1.
Processing of Empty Subject in Japanese
Sakamoto (1995, 1996, 2002), Oda et al. (1997), and Ninose
et al. (1998) conducted a series of experiments on empty sub-
jects in Japanese. Japa nese offers two advantages over English.
Firstly, verb control information is not yet available at the PRO
position, since Japanese is a verb-final language. So, it is not
necessary to posit an untested hypothesis that the control in-
formation of a verb is not used immediately. Secondly, Japa-
nese allows scrambling of arguments, so that either noun (sub-
ject and object) may be put in a recent filler or distant filler
position. This means that the recency hypothesis (MRFS) can
be tested.
Sakamoto (1995) examined subject control (12a) and object
control (12b) sentences in order to identify which of them was
preferred. The experimental sentences were ‘read-out sen-
tences’ that had normal sentential contours. Participants were
given a ‘retrieval task’ in which they were instructed to listen to
each sentence and respond by naming the person who was go-
ing to be in Tokyo.
(12) a. Subject control (SO order)
Tosio1-ga kinoo Junko2-ni [PRO1
Tosio-NOM yesterday Junko-DAT
Tookyoo iki]-o tegami-de hakuzyoosita.
Tokyo going-ACC letter-by confessed
‘Yesterday, Tosio confessed to Junko by a letter that
he would go to Tokyo.’
b. Object control (SO order)
Tosio1-ga kinoo Junko2-ni [PRO
2
Tosio-NOM yesterday Junko-DAT
Tookyoo iki]-o tegami-de meireisita.
Tokyo going-ACC letter-by ordered
‘Yesterday, Tosio ordered Junko by a letter that she
would go to Tokyo.
c. Subject control (OS order)
Junko2-ni kinoo Tosio1-ga trace2
Junko-DAT yesterday Tosio-NOM
[PRO
1 Tookyoo iki]-o tegami-de hakuzyoosita.
Tokyo going-ACC letter-by confessed
d. Object control (OS order)
Junko2-ni kinoo Tosio1-ga trace2
Junko-DAT yesterday Tosio-NOM
[PRO
2 Tookyoo iki]-o tegami-de meireisita.
Tokyo going-ACC letter-by ordered
The findings show that the object control sentences have sig-
nificantly faster RTs than the subject control sentences. The
objects in this experiment were also the more recent fillers.
Thus, the results of this experiment are compatible with the
hypothesis that the MRFS applies to Ja panese control structures.
However, another possible explanation is that the parser prefers
to assign control to an object initially. A second experiment
was designed to compare these two hypotheses.
In Experiment 2, the order of the subject and object NPs was
switched ((12c) and (12d)), so that in the object control sen-
tences the object is the distant filler, and in the subject control
sentences the subject is the recent filler. The result was the
same as Experiment 1: the RTs of the object control sentences
were significantly faster than the subject control sentences. The
findings of Experiments 1 and 2 indicate that either 1) the
MRFS affects the parsing process, if the parser recognizes the
empty category as a possible filler for an another empty cate-
gory (this is called ‘Empty Filler Also (EFA)’ hypothesis); or 2)
the grammatical object is preferred as the candidate for the
empty subject.
Using the same material as Sakamoto (1995), Oda et al.
(1997) and Ninose et al. (1998) found that the participants tend
to prefer the main clause subject as a possible antecedent for
the empty subject. That is, in contrary to Sakamoto (1995),
which observed the ‘object preference’ effect (the grammatical
object is preferred as the candidate for the empty subject), Oda
et al. (1997), Ninose et al. (1998) reported the ‘subject prefer-
ence’ effect (the grammatical subject is preferred as the candi-
date for the empty subject). However, note that the task in Sa-
kamoto’s experiments was a ‘retrieval task’, whereby the par-
ticipants were required to reproduce the correct antecedent, by
naming one of the two possible antecedents. On the other hand,
in the experiments of Oda et al. and Ninose et al., the partici-
pants were given a ‘recognition task’, where they were required
to answer whether the given antecedent would really go to To-
kyo or not, by pressing the “Yes” or “No” key as quickly as
possible. Sakamoto (2002) tries to resolve the seemingly con-
tradictory results by positing two distinct levels of sentence
processing. One level involves a rather automatic and shallow
mode of processing, in which the parser uses Case information
to perform the recognition task. The other level involves a
rather conscious and deep mode of processing, in which the
parser relies on Theta-role information to perform the retrieval
task.
Problems of Previous Studies
The claim by Frazier et al. (1983) consists of three assump-
tions: 1) verb control information is delayed, 2) during this
delay the MRFS applies, and 3) an empty category (trace) is not
recognized as a possible filler in applying the MRFS (i.e.,
Lexical Filler Only (LFO) hypothesis). The schematic repre-
sentation of (8) is shown in (13).
(13) Frazier et al. (1983): English
Movement
[filler2]－[filler1]－[verb]－[trace]－[PRO]
MRF＋LFO
The results of Sakamoto’s (1995) Experiment 1, in which
experimental sentences take the “Subject-Object” order, show
that object control sentences are easier to process than subject
control sentences. The object NPs in this experiment are also
the most recent fillers. Thus, the results of this experiment are
compatible with the hypothesis that the MRFS applies to Japa-
nese control structures. However, the results of Experiment 2,
with the “Object-Subject” order, reveal that it is not the most
recent lexical filler, but the object NP, that is preferred as a
controller, even when it is more distant than another lexical
filler. This is not compatible with the MRFS for Japanese
unless the parser recognizes empty categories as possible fillers
(i.e., Empty Filler Also (EFA) hypothesis). The schematic rep-
resentation of (12c, d) is as illustrated in (14).
(14) Sakamoto (1995), Oda et al. (1997)
1This is termed the “Lexical Filler Only” hypothesis in Sakamoto (1995,
1996
)
. and Ninose et al. (1998): Japanese

Y. ZHAI 563
Movement
[filler2]－[filler1]－[trace]－[PRO]－[verb]
MRF＋EFA
Subject Preference
Object Preference
Note that for English, application of the MRFS is dependent
on the condition that delays access to the verb control informa-
tion. For Japanese, there is no way to examine the delay of verb
control information since the main verb is located at the end of
a sentence. That is, control information is not delayed but sim-
ply does not exist. In the present study, we will use the follow-
ing schematic representation in the Dui-construction of Chinese
to test the results of English and Japanese.
(15) Dui-construction in Chinese
Movement
[filler2]－[filler1]－[trace]－[verb]－[PRO]
MRF + EFA
MRF + LFO
Subject Preference
Object Preference
There are two advantages of using the Dui-construction over
English and Japanese. Firstly, in (13) and (15), Chinese is
similar to English in that the [verb] is located before [PRO]. It
is therefore possible to verify whether the verb control informa-
tion is delayed or not in this case. Delay of verb control infor-
mation cannot be tested in Japanese, since the verb does not
appear before the parser encounters PRO. Secondly, (14) and
(15) indicate that Chinese is similar to Japanese in that they
both allow scrambling of arguments. As such, we can examine
whether the MRFS applies to Chinese or not.
Moreover, the reading time of each word was not measured
in the previous studies on English and Japanese. It is therefore
not clear how the parser processes each word, which makes it
difficult to verify whether verb control information is available
immediately. The reading time of each word is observed in the
present experi m e n t s.
Experiments
This section discusses two experiments that were conducted in
order to find clues for answering the questions raised in Section
5. It has been argued in previous studies that the MRFS is ap-
plied during empty subject processing in English, and that con-
trol information is used after the MRFS is applied. On the other
hand, there is an argument that the MRFS is not applied in
Japanese. The results of empty subject sentence processing in
English and Japanese are different, and a unanimous opinion
has not been presented regarding the processing of the empty
subject sentences stated above. Therefore, this study aims to
clarify the following two points by using Dui-constructions in
Chinese such as (15).
1) Is verb control information available immediately or
delayed?
2) Is the MRFS applicable to the Dui-construction in Chi-
nese?
a) If the MRFS is applied to Chinese, is it accomplished by
LFO (Lexical Filler Only) or EFA (Empty Filler Also)?
b) If the MRFS is not applicable to Chinese, which of the
two antecedents (subject or object) is preferred?
Experiment 1
Materials
Consider the following examples taken from the list of sen-
tences tested in this experimen t.
(16) a Subject control (SO order)
p1 p2 p3 p4
Shangzhou Xiaodong1 zai xinzhong dui nüyou2
last week Xiaodong in letter to girlfriend
p5 p6 p7 p8
zhencheng tanbai shuo [<PRO1>qu Beijing.]
seriously confess that go Beijing
“Last week Xiaodong confessed to (his) girlfriend seriously in
(his/a) letter that he would go to Beijing.”
b. Object control (SO order)
Shangzhou Xiaodong1 zai xinzhong dui nüyou2
last week Xiaodong in letter to girlfriend
zhencheng quangao shuo [<PRO2>qu Beijing.]
seriously advise that go Beijing
“Last week Xiaodong advised (his) girlfriend to go to Beijing
seriously in (his/a) letter.”
c. Subject control (OS order)
Dui nüyou2 shangzhou Xiaodong1 zai xinzhong trace2
to girlfriend last week Xiaodong in letter
zhencheng tanbai shuo [<PRO1>qu Beijing.]
seriously confess that go Beijing
d. Object control (OS order)
Dui nüyou2 shangzhou Xiaodong1 zai xinzhong trace2
to girlfriend last week Xiaodong in letter
zhencheng quangao shuo [<PRO2>qu Beijing.]
seriously advise that go Beijing
The main clause verb “tanbai (confess)” in (16a, c) is a subject
control verb, whereas the main clause verb “quangao (advise)”
in (16b, d) is an object control verb2. (16a, b) take the ‘subject –
object’ word order, and (16c, d) the ‘object – subject’ word
order. Thus, the experiment design is 2 (verb types) × 2 (word
orders).
The difference between the subject and object control verbs
in p6 was controlled in terms of the number of characters, the
number of syllables, and the word frequency. All the subject
and object control verbs have two characters and two syllables.
The difference in judged frequency between the subject control
verbs (M = 3.96) and object control verbs (M = 3.91) is not
significant (t1(29) = 1.217, p = .233, t2(13) = 1.176, p = .261).
Therefore, the two types of control verbs have almost the same
lexical characteristic, and it is possible to make a direct com-
parison between them.
Predictions
There are two verbs in (16): one is the main clause verb (p6),
the other is the complement clause verb (p7). If the control
information of the verb (p6) is not used immediately, then the
RTs of p6 should not be different among the four types of sen-
tences. Thus, identification of the antecedent should be per-
formed at the point p7, and a difference in the RTs of “qu Bei-
jing” should be observed among the different types of sentences.
2It may be poss ible to claim that ‘s huo’ is also a verb. However , we follow
Simpson and Wu (2002), which claim that “Frequently this occurs when a
language has serial verb constructions which allow for a sequence of two
verbs of communication to become reanalyzed as a sequence of verb +
complementizer (p. 75)”. This is illustrated schematically i n (1):
(1) Verb1 Verb2 → Verb1 Complementizer

Y. ZHAI 564
If the MRFS is applicable to Chinese, then “dui nüyou (p4 to
girlfriend)” in (16b) is the nearest lexical filler, and the RT of
p7 in (16b) will be shorter than that in (16a).
In the scrambled sentences (16c) and (16d), the difference in
the RTs of p7 depends on whether the trace is the filler or not.
If the trace is taken as the filler (Empty Filler Also (EFA) hy-
pothesis), the RT of p7 in (16d) will be shorter than that in
(16c). On the other hand, if the trace is not taken as the filler
(Lexical Filler Only (LFO) hypothesis), then “Xiaodong (p3)”
in (16c) is the nearest filler, and the RT of p7 will be shorter
than that in (16d).
If the recency strategy (MRFS) does not work in these con-
structions, and the subject is preferred by the parser, then the
RTs of p7 in subject control sentences ((16a) and (16c)) will be
shorter than those in the object control sentences ((16b) and
(16d)). If the object is preferred by the parser, the RTs of p7 in
object control sentences ((16b) and (16d)) will be shorter than
those in the subject control sentences ((16a) and (16c)). The
schematic representation of the prediction is as shown in (17).
(17) Table 1.
Predicted relation of reading t i m e s of p7 in Experiment 1 (Assumption:
Control information of the verb (p6) is not used imm e d i a t e l y).
1) MRF + LFO (16a) > (16b) (16c ) < (16d)
2) MRF + EFA (16a) > (16b) (16c) > (16d)
3) Subject Preferenc e (16a, c) < (16b, d)
4) Object Pref erence (16a, c) > (16b , d)
Methods and R e s ul t s
Participants
Twenty participants (9 males and 11 females) participated in
this experiment. All participants are native speakers of Chinese
with normal or corrected-to-normal vision, who are students at
the Kyushu University in Japan. The average age is 28 years
old. They were paid 500 yen for half an hour.
Procedures
The experiment was conducted with SuperLab 2.0 running
on a CX/835LS dynabook notebook computer. Each sentence is
presented word-by-word in Chinese script. Each phrase3 is dis-
played using a moving window. Presentation of a sentence is
initiated when the participant first presses the ‘Q’ key on a
standard computer keyboard labeled ‘read’. A ‘’ first appears ★
in the script. It is a symbol that tells the participants that the
experimental sentence will begin at this position. Pressing the
key following the final display (period) displays the question:
“Will this person go to Beijing?”. Participants are instructed to
respond using either the YES or NO key. Thus, this is not a
retrieval but recognition task. The time between the onset of
presentation of any phrase and the key operation for initiating
the next phrase is recorded by the computer’s internal clock and
deemed as the reading time.
Results
Analysis of Variance was performed on the data of the RTs
in each phrase to determine their statistical significance. Here,
we report the results of the main clause verb p6 and the com-
plement sentence verb p7.
The RTs of p6 (verb + shuo (that)) for subject control sen-
tences were shorter than those for the object control sentences,
and the difference was significant in both the participant analy-
sis and item analysis (F1(1.19) = 6.43, p < .05, F2(1.27) = 6.10,
p < .05). The difference between SO-order sentences and
OS-order sentences was not significant in both the participant
analysis and item analysis (F1(1.19) = 1.59, p = .22, F2 < 1).
There was no interaction (F1 < 1, F2 < 1).
The RTs of p7 (go Beijing) for subject control sentences
were shorter than those for the object control sentences, and the
difference was significant only in the participant analysis
(F1(1.19) = 4.66, p < .05, F2(1.27) = 1.01, p = 0.33). The dif-
ference between SO-order sentences and OS-order sentences
was significant in both the participant analysis and item analy-
sis (F1(1.19) = 4.68, p < .05, F2(1.27) = 5.27, p < .05). In addi-
tion, there was a marginal effect of interaction (F1(1.19) = 3.60,
p = .07, F2(1.27) = 3.86, p = .06). The main effect of word or-
der in object control sentences (F1(1.19) = 7.31, p < .05,
F2(1.27) = 4.06, p < .05), and the main effect of sentence type
in the SO word order (F1 (1.19) = 8.13, p < .01, F2 (1.27) = 8.91,
p < .005) were observed in both the participant analysis and
item analysis. However, the main effect of word order in sub-
ject control sentences (F1< 1, F2 < 1), and the main effect of
sentence type in the OS word order (F1 < 1, F2 < 1) were not
observed.
Discussion
The RTs of p7 in (16a) is shorter than that in (16b) as shown
in Figure 1 ((16a) < (16b)). As stated above, the main effect of
sentence type in the SO word order was significant (F1(1.19) =
8.13, p < .01, F2(1.27) = 8.91, p < .005). This result disagrees
with 1) and 2) in (17), which predict that the MRFS applies to
Chinese. Since this strategy is not tenable, it is legitimate to
claim that there is a language processing system independent of
the MRFS (i.e., the nearest filler fills up the gap).
Moreover, the RTs of p6 (verb + shuo (that)) for subject
control sentences are significantly shorter than those for the
object control sentences (F1(1.19) = 6.43, p < .05, F2(1.27) =
6.10, p < .05). The structure of (16a) is like (18a), and the struc-
ture of (16b) is like (18b). The verb “tanbai (confess)” is a sub-
ject control verb, and it does not allow an object before the
infinitive clause. On the other hand, the verb “quangao (ad-
vise)” is an object control verb, and it requires a direct object
before an infinitive clause. It is the same in (16c) and (16d) that
“tanbai (confess)” does not allow an object before the infinitive
clause, “quangao (advise)” requires a direct object before an
infinitive clause. It is thought that the difference between con-
structions such as (18a) and (18b) causes the difference in the
3Here, because there are cases such as “word”, “preposition + noun”,
“verb + complementizer”, we refer to them as “phrase” collectively. Figure 1.
Reading times of each phrase in Ex periment 1.

Y. ZHAI 565
RTs of P6. In short, constructing a transitive structure might be
more costly for an object control sentence than a subject control
sentence. Note that this explanation becomes possible based on
the condition that the control information of the verb (p6) is
used immediately.
(18) a. Simple Structure of (16a) b. Simple Structure of (16b)
Moreover, the unique character of ‘subject’ in Chinese (i.e.,
there is no concept of so-called ‘subject’ in Chinese. Instead, it
is suitable to be called ‘focus’) may be another reason for the
difference in the RTs of p6. The above result may indicate that
the parser expects the focus of the following clause to be the
subject of the main clause before the verb p6 appears. This
prediction is correct in the case of a subject control verb, but
not the object control verb. This explains why the RTs of p6 in
subject control sentences are shorter than those in object control
sentences. Similarly , this explanation is valid based on the con-
dition that the control information of the verb (p6) is used im-
mediately.
The RTs of p7 in the subject control sentences ((16b,c) are
shorter than those in the object control sentences (16b,d)
((16a,c) < (16b,d)), although the difference is significant only
in the participant analysis (F1(1.19) = 4.66, p < .05, F2(1.27) =
1.01, p = 0.33). This is in accordance with the prediction of the
subject preference hypothesis in 3) of (17). These results there-
fore suggest that ‘subject preference’ applies to the Dui-cons-
truction. However, note that ‘subject preference’ is applicable
only when the information of the verb (p6) is not used immedi-
ately.
From the results of Experiment 1, we have clarified that the
MRFS does not apply to the Dui-construction. However, it is
still not clear whether or not the verb control information is
used immediately.
In experimental sentences such as (16), note that the verb of
the main clause (p6) and the verb of the complement clause (p7)
are adjacent. Thus, it is difficult to judge whether the gap filling
process begins at p6 or p7. Gap-filling may start immediately
after the main verb appears, or it may start some time later. To
resolve the adjacency issue, we conducted Experiment 2,
whereby three adverbs a re placed between the verb of the main
clause and the verb of the complement clause. These adverbs
make it possible to observe the starting point of the gap-filling
process.
Experiment 2
In Experiment 2, we try to verify whether control informa-
tion of the main clause verb is used immediately.
Materials
In Experiment 2, three adverbs are placed between the verbs
of the main clause and the complement clause. Consider the
following examples taken from the list of sentences tested in
this experiment.
(2) a. Subject control (SO order)
p1 p2 p3 p4
Shangzhou Xiaodong1 zai xinzhong dui Xiaohong2
last week Xiaodong in letter to Xiaohong
p5 p6 p7 p8
zhencheng tanbai shuo [biye hou cong Changchun
seriously confess that graduate after from Changchun
p9 p10
zhijie 〈PRO1〉qu Beijing4]
immediately go Beijing
“Last week Xiaodong confessed to Xiaohong seriously
in a letter that he would go to Beijing from Changchun
immediately after graduating.”
b. Object control (SO order)
Shangzhou Xiaodong1 zaixinzhong duiXiaohong2
last week Xiaodong in letter to Xiaohong
zhencheng quangao shuo [biye hou cong Changchun
seriously advise that graduate after from Changchun
zhijie 〈PRO2〉qu Beijing.]
immediately go Beijing
“Last week Xiaodong (seriously) advised Xiaohong to
go to Beijing from Changchun immediately after gradu-
ating in a letter.”
c. Subject control (OS order)
DuiXiaohong2 shangzhou Xiaodong1 zaixinzhong
to Xiaohong last week Xiaodong in letter
trace2 zhencheng tanbai shuo [biye hou
seriously confess that graduate after
cong Changchun zhijie 〈PRO1〉qu Beijing.]
from Changchun immediately go Beijing
d. Object control (OS order)
Dui Xiaohong2 shangzhou Xiaodong1 zaixinzhong
to Xiaohong last week Xiaodong in letter
trace2 zhencheng quangao shuo [biye hou
seriously advise that graduate after
cong Changchun zhijie 〈PRO2〉qu Beijing.]
from Changchun immediately go Beijing
Predictions
Table 2 shows the predictions of the RTs of p10, if the main
clause verb (p6) is not used immediately.
(20) Table 2.
Predicted relation of reading times of p10 in Experiment 2 (Assump-
tion: Control informat io n o f th e v er b (p6) is not used immedia tely).
1) MRF + LFO (19a) > (19b) (19c ) < (19d)
2) MRF + EFA (19a) > (19b) (19c) > (19d)
3) Subject Preferenc e (19a, c) < (19b , d)
4) Object Pref erence (19a, c) > (19b , d)
If the control information of the verb (p6) is not used imme-
diately, and the MRFS is applicable to Chinese, then “dui
Xiaohong (p4 to Xiaohong)” in (19b) is the nearest lexical filler,
and the RTs of p10 in (19b) will be shorter than (19a).
If the control information of the verb (p6) is not used imme-
4It was pointed out that there is a possibility that the parser uses some
special s trategies for p rocessing if all th e experimental sen tences end with
“qu Beijing” (Edson Miyamoto, personal communication).However, in
Experiment 2, a significant difference in the RT of “qu Beijing (p10)”
between each condition was not observed. Therefore, we claim that the
empty subject has already been filled when the main clause verb is input.
In other words, the result remains the same even if we change “qu Beijing”
to another expression.

Y. ZHAI 566
diately, and ‘subject preference’ is applicable to Chinese, then
the RTs of p10 in the subject control sentences ((19a) and (19c))
will be shorter than those in the object control sentences ((19b)
and (19d)). If the object is preferred by the parser, the RTs of
p10 in the object control sentences ((19b) and (19d)) will be
shorter than the subject control sentences ((19a) and (19c)).
If the results disagree with the predictions in (20), this leads
to the possibility that the control information of the main clause
verb (p6) is used immediately.
Methods and R e s ul t s
Participants
Twenty-four participants (8 males and 16 females) different
from those in Experiment 1 participated in this experiment. All
participants are native speakers of Chinese with normal or cor-
rected-to-normal vision, who are students at the Kyushu Uni-
versity in Japan. The average age is 28 years old. They were
paid 500 yen for forty minutes.
Procedures
Procedures are the same as those of Experiment 1. That is,
we have used a self-paced moving window representation and a
recognition task.
Results
Analysis of Variance was performed on the data of the RTs
in each phrase to determine their statistical significance. Here,
we report the results of the main clause verb p6 (verb + shuo
(that)) and the complement sentence verb p10.
The RTs of p6 for subject control sentences were shorter than
those for the object control sentences, and the difference was
significant in both the participant analysis and item analysis (F1
(1.23) = 5.43, p < .05, F2 (1.35) = 13.87, p < .001). The differ-
ence between SO-order sentences and OS-order sentences was
not significant in both the participant analysis and item analysis
(F1 < 1, F2 < 1). There was no interaction (F1 (1.23) = 1.17, p
=.29, F2 < 1).
In p10 “qu Beijing”, neither the main effect of the word order
(F1 < 1, F2 < 1), the main effect of the sentence type (F1 < 1, F2
< 1) nor interaction (F1 < 1, F2 < 1) was observed.
Discussion
As shown in Figure 2, no significant difference in the RTs of
p10 was observed between each condition in this experiment.
This result disagrees with the predictions in (20) that control
information of the ma in clause verb is not used immedia tely, as
discussed in predictions.
The RTs of p6 is the same as Experiment 1, and is shorter for
the subject control sentences than for the object control sen-
tences. With regard to this finding, there are at least two inter-
pretations as with the case of Experiment 1. Firstly, construct-
ing a transitive structure might be more costly for an object
control sentence than for a subject control sentence. Secondly,
the special character of ‘subject’ in Chinese makes the RTs of
subject control verbs shorter than object control verbs. These
two interpretations both support the claim that control informa-
tion of the main clause verb is used immediately.
Since no significant difference in the RTs of p10 was ob-
served, we consider that the empty subject has already been
filled before the complement sentence verb (p10) appears. Thus,
we suggest that the empty subject is filled by information from
another verb (the main clause verb p6) that exists in the ex-
perimental sentence. In short, control information of the main
clause verb p6 is used immediately.
Figure 2.
Reading times of each phrase in Ex periment 2.
Summary of Experiments 1 and 2
In Experiment 1, the mean RT of “qu Beijing (p7)” in the
subject control sentences (SO order) was shorter than that in the
object control sentences (SO order), and the difference was
significant in both the participant analysis and item analysis. In
Experiment 2, no significant difference in the RTs of “qu Bei-
jing (p10)” between each condition was observed. These two
experiments disagree with the claim that the MRFS applies to
Chinese.
There are two possible ways of interpreting the results of
Experiment 1. 1) Control information of the main clause verb is
used immediately; 2) ‘subject preference’ applies to the
Dui-construction in Chinese when the information of the verb
(p6) is not used immediately. In other words, it is not clear in
Experiment 1 whether control information of the verb is used
immediately. In the results of Experiment 2, no significant dif-
ference in the RTs of p10 was observed. This clearly proves
that the control information of the main clause verb is used
immediately.
Based on Experiments 1 and 2, we suggest that 1) the control
information of the main clause verb is used immediately; 2) the
MRFS does not apply to Chinese.
Concluding Remarks
In processing English empty subject sentences, Frazier et al.
(1983) propose the MRFS.
(21) (= (11))
Most Recent Filler Strategy: During language compre-
hension a detected gap is initially and quickly taken to be
co-indexed with the most recent potential filler.
Application of the MRFS is dependent on two conditions,
namely 1) LFO and 2) Verb Control Delay.
1) Lexical Filler Only: The parser does not recognize a gap as
filler for another gap.
2) Verb Control Delay: Verb control information is not used
immediately when the main clause verb appears.
Experiments in Sakamoto (1995), Oda et al. (1997) and Ni-
nose et al. (1998) on the processing of the control structures in
Japanese have arrived at the following three findings.
1) The MRFS is not applicable to control structures in Japa-
nese.
2) In the recognition task, participants tend to prefer the main
clause subject as a possible antecedent for the empty sub-
ject.

Y. ZHAI 567
3) In the retrieval task, participants tend to prefer the main
clause object as a possible antecedent for the empty sub-
ject.
The findings of the present study regarding the processing of
Dui-construction in Chinese are summarized as follows.
1) The MRFS is not applicable to control structures in Chi-
nese.
2) Verb control information is used immediately when the
verb appears.
Since the MRFS is not applicable to the control structures in
Japanese and Chinese, it is possible that the MRFS is a special
strategy that is applied only to English. However, note that for
English, application of the MRFS is dependent on the condition
that delays access to the verb control information. If this condi-
tion does not exist, the basis of the MRFS is lost. However,
sentence processing is developed along the temporal sequence.
That is, the information of each word is processed at a high
speed without any delay. It is not natural to claim the delay in
the verb control information from the viewpoint of a general
processing system. Furthermore, we have also verified through
our experiments that the control information of a verb is used
immediately, hence indicating that there is a language process-
ing system that is independent of the MRFS. From the above
discussion, we therefore claim that 1) the control information of
a verb is used immediately, and 2) there is a language-specific
processing system that is independent of the general-purpose
recency strategy.
Acknowledgements
This work has received support from the Center for the Study
of Language Performance, Kyushu University. Especially, I
wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor Professor Tsu-
tomu Sakamoto.
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