Direct objects in the Dutch middle-field can appear to the left or to the right of an adverb. This phenomenon, called scrambling or object shift, has received a lot of attention in the linguistic literature (Verhagen 1986; Vanden Wyngaerd 1989; Neeleman 1994; de Hoop 1996; 2000; 2003; Schaeffer 1997; 2000; Neeleman & Reinhart 1998; Unsworth 2005; Broekhuis 2008; Neeleman & van de Koot 2008; van Bergen & de Swart 2009; 2010; de Swart & van Bergen 2011; van de Koot et al. 2015; Broekhuis & Corver 2016: Chapter 13; Schoenmakers & de Swart 2019; Schoenmakers et al. 2020). An example of a scrambling clause with a definite object is given in (1). The object de agent ‘the officer’ is considered to be in unscrambled position in (1a) and in scrambled position in (1b).

At first sight, the word orders appear to be freely interchangeable, as the two sentences convey the same meaning. A standard assumption in the literature, however, is that this variation is not entirely free. Scrambling is taken to be closely related to discourse conditions. Most researchers claim that objects in scrambled position are interpreted as topical or discourse-anaphoric, and objects in unscrambled position as focal or discourse-new (Verhagen 1986; Neeleman & Reinhart 1998; Schaeffer 1997; 2000; Broekhuis 2008; Neeleman & van de Koot 2008; Broekhuis & Corver 2016: Chapter 13). The rationale behind these accounts is that scrambled objects do not surface in the topological field of the clause where new information is introduced (Verhagen 1986; Neeleman & Reinhart 1998), but instead occupy a marked position that is linked to discourse-anaphoricity (Neeleman & van de Koot 2008). Although there is some discussion about the intuitions reported in the literature (see de Hoop 2016 and Broekhuis 2016), the assumption that there is a strict “discourse template” is wide-spread. Discourse-old objects in unscrambled position are referred to as “highly disfavored” (Neeleman & Reinhart 1998: 325) and “decidedly awkward” (Neeleman & van de Koot 2008: 60). Broekhuis & Corver (2016: 1613) claim that scrambling of definite objects “is possible only if the referent of the direct object is already part of the domain of discourse.” And while Broekhuis (2008: 218) suggests that it is “apparently optional” for definite objects to scramble, he concludes that “[scrambling] is blocked […] when [the object] is part of the focus of the clause.” Thus, the general consensus in the literature is that the scrambled position is reserved for discourse-old (or topical) objects and the unscrambled position for discourse-new (or focal) objects.

Given these strong intuitions, it is rather surprising that van Bergen & de Swart (2009) find in a corpus study that only 14% of scrambled definites are anaphoric and only 22% of anaphoric definites are located in scrambled position. De Swart & van Bergen (2011) do not find evidence for an effect of anaphoricity in a follow-up behavioral experiment either, and, although Schoenmakers et al. (2020) do find an effect of anaphoricity in their experiment, the proportion of anaphoric definites they find in scrambled position is only from 42% to 57% (depending on the condition). These corpus and experimental data imply that the idea of a one-to-one mapping between an object’s surface position and its interpretation in discourse is too strong. The current paper investigates whether a discourse template exists for discourse-new definite objects (specifically, for contrastive foci) in Dutch scrambling constructions, by collecting new experimental data. The paper is structured as follows.

Section 2 discusses previous analyses of definite object scrambling in Dutch, which lead to the prediction of a strict discourse template. This prediction is tested experimentally in Section 3, which reports on a fill-in-the-blanks task and a speeded judgment task. The experimental results indicate that mismatches between surface order and pragmatic interpretation do exist, but come at an increased processing cost. The type of adverb also plays an important role in Dutch scrambling structures (Schoenmakers & de Swart 2019). Sentences with an adverb that is sensitive to focus placement show a pattern that closely resembles those attested in the psycholinguistic literature on scope ambiguities. Specifically, both scrambled and unscrambled definites allow for a focal as well as for a non-focal interpretation, but there is a penalty in judgment scores and a delay in reaction times for form-meaning pairs that diverge from the discourse template. Strikingly, these effects do not emerge in the items with a (focus insensitive) time-point adverb.

Section 4 seeks to account for the experimental findings in a formal syntactic framework. The view that I pursue here is that scrambling involves movement that is prompted by a scrambling feature (following Grewendorf & Sabel 1999; Sauerland 1999; Kawamura 2004). The scrambling feature is optionally assigned to objects that enter the derivation. Discourse relations are derived post-syntactically and may be subjected to two familiar scope-shifting operations: reconstruction and raising (Fox 1999; 2000; Reinhart 2006). An important outcome of the analysis is that definite objects in scrambled and unscrambled position both have two possible pragmatic interpretations.

Section 5 contains the general conclusions.

The link between Dutch scrambling and effects at the interfaces is well documented in the literature. The common assumption is that the structural position of a definite object has direct repercussions for its discourse status. Neeleman & Reinhart’s (1998) take on scrambling is that the variation is entirely optional in syntax and evaluated at the syntax-phonetics interface instead. Their analysis is built on observations that there is a strong relation between sentence stress and discourse structure (e.g. Chomsky 1971; Jackendoff 1972; Cinque 1993). The main stress of a clause with default accenting falls on the most deeply embedded element (Cinque’s 1993 Nuclear Stress Rule), and the focus of a clause must contain the element bearing the main stress. Foci are those elements that convey discourse-new information (Rochemont 1986; Vallduví 1992; Lambrecht 1994; Erteschik-Shir 1997) and contrast this information to a set of alternatives (Rooth 1992).1 These generalizations entail that the main stress in Dutch falls on a different constituent in scrambled and unscrambled constructions (see also Verhagen 1986: Chapter 4), as scrambled objects occur in a structurally higher position.

Neeleman & Reinhart (1998) reason that scrambled and unscrambled objects must therefore have a different discourse status, and that certain objects are required to appear in scrambled position in order to escape the focus domain of the clause. They propose that the prosodic contour of a clause is used at the PF-interface to link syntactic structure to an appropriate discourse interpretation. A sentence is infelicitous for a given context if the stress pattern does not match this discourse context. Since scrambled objects are not the most deeply embedded members of VP, they do not receive main stress and consequently cannot be the focus of the sentence. Objects in unscrambled position, on the other hand, do receive main stress and are therefore located in a position that can host foci. Consider the dialogue in (2). The question selects for the object in the answer to be in focus (or, contrastive focus). A structure like (2b) is therefore not an expected response, because the object does not surface in the syntactic position in which focus is assigned by the prosodic contour.

Neeleman & Reinhart (1998) conclude that, since discourse-anaphoric object DPs are destressed (see Reinhart 2006), they must appear in scrambled position for the derivation not to yield an infelicitous configuration.

In later work, Neeleman considers a purely phonological account of scrambling “insufficiently general” (Neeleman & van de Koot 2008: 167). While such an account may lead to the right predictions for direct objects in the scrambling structures discussed so far, Neeleman & van de Koot (2008) argue that it does not for other displaced arguments. But the impression that there is a close connection between surface order and discourse structure is uncontroversial. They propose that certain syntactic configurations, including definite object scrambling structures in Dutch, may be licensed or blocked by operations at the interfaces (see also Neeleman & Vermeulen 2012). Neeleman & van de Koot (2008) argue in favor of a base-generation account of scrambling. The verb is free to merge with the direct object or with the adverb first, they claim, because adverbs do not affect thematic structure. The scrambled order is syntactically marked because it requires an extra step of theta-role percolation. Neeleman & van de Koot formulate a mapping rule that projects the output of syntax onto an appropriate discourse structure, such that objects in the marked scrambled position are interpreted as discourse-anaphoric. The unscrambled position is linked to non-discourse-anaphoricity (or “discourse-newness”) under an Elsewhere condition that blocks the application of a general rule (i.e. all definites can be interpreted as discourse-anaphoric) where scrambling is an option. Neeleman & van de Koot suggest that their discourse template reflects the often attested given-before-new preference (see Gundel 1988), asserting that an early presentation of given information facilitates connecting this information to the foregoing discourse context. In addition, this configuration makes it easier to parse upcoming new information.

The same type of discourse template results from the analysis in Broekhuis (2008). Broekhuis presents an optimality theoretic account of Dutch scrambling, making use of the set of constraints defined in (3) and the constraint order in (4). According to Broekhuis, direct objects move to scrambled position in order to have their case features checked. This requirement is realized in (4) by having CASE outrank the economy constraint STAY. The constraint ALIGNFOCUS states that, under neutral intonation, the most deeply embedded constituent in a clause is the sentence focus. ALIGNFOCUS outranks the other constraints and, therefore, the constraint order in (4) predicts that scrambling only applies when the object refers to discourse-old (topical) information. By ALIGNFOCUS, objects that refer to discourse-new (focal) information remain in unscrambled position.

Most literature thus agrees that Dutch scrambling constructions adhere to a strict mapping from syntax to discourse structure. Definite objects refer to discourse-new (focal) information when they appear in unscrambled position, and to discourse-old (topical) information when they appear in scrambled position. The question addressed in this paper is whether definite objects in scrambling structures are also interpretable in a position different from where they are phonetically realized. If there is indeed a strict discourse template, mismatches between surface order and pragmatic interpretation are not expected to occur. But, as noted before, corpus and experimental data in van Bergen & de Swart (2009), de Swart & van Bergen (2011), and Schoenmakers et al. (2020) suggest that this prediction is too strong.

Another issue concerns scope differences between the adverbs that allow for definite object scrambling. Negation, for example, is an element that has long been known to be “associated with focus” (Jackendoff 1972), and is accordingly referred to as a focus sensitive expression (Beaver & Clark 2008). This means that the pragmatic interpretation of a clause containing negation depends on the location of the focus. Other types of focus sensitive expressions include quantificational adverbs (always, usually), exclusives (only, merely), and additives (even, too, also). By default, these expressions occur to the left of the material they modify (see Foolen et al. 2009 for some initial distributional data). The surface position of a constituent relative to a focus sensitive expression thus seems to affect its discourse status in Dutch.

This hypothesis is tested experimentally in Schoenmakers & de Swart (2019), who study word order preferences of native speakers of Dutch in scrambling clauses with negation (5) and time-point adverbs (6) (which are not sensitive to focus placement, cf. Ruys 2001). By default, sentence (5) triggers contrastive negation if the object het kozijn ‘the window frame’ surfaces to the right of negation (5i), and sentential negation if it surfaces to the left of negation (5ii). No such meaning difference emerges in sentences with a time-point adverb, like (6).

Schoenmakers & de Swart (2019) find in a judgment task that the unscrambled order in sentences with negation receives significantly lower acceptability ratings than the scrambled order. Moreover, participants in a sentence production task hardly ever use the unscrambled order for sentences with negation. By contrast, when the sentence contains a time-point adverb the two orders receive equally acceptable ratings at the high end of the scale, and the choice of word order in production is more balanced (40% scrambled). The authors conclude that Dutch scrambling preferences are governed by whether or not the adverb is sensitive to focus placement, and propose that speakers utilize scrambling of definite objects as a tool to avoid expressing the marked contrastive reading of utterances with negation.

However, Schoenmakers & de Swart’s (2019) conclusion on the contrastive reading of an unscrambled definite object in the scope of negation as a focus sensitive expression is based on their own intuitions only, since their stimulus sentences were not disambiguated in any way. The question remains how the objects in structures like (5) and (6) are interpreted. This brings us back to the question whether mismatches between surface order and discourse structure are extant in Dutch scrambling constructions.

This section presents two experiments that investigate whether Dutch scrambling constructions can accommodate “inverse readings” when the discourse context licenses the mismatch. In particular, the question is whether definite objects in scrambled position can be interpreted as focal, and definite objects in unscrambled position as non-focal. First, the question is addressed to what extent a strict discourse template is followed in an off-line fill-in-the-blanks task in Section 3.1. The results suggest that while pragmatic interpretation is informed by surface order, not all unscrambled objects are focal and, conversely, some scrambled objects are. The hypothesis that Dutch scrambling allows for inverse readings is further tested in a speeded judgment task in Section 3.2. A common finding in the psycholinguistic literature on scope ambiguities is that the computation of an inverse reading in scope ambiguous sentences incurs additional processing difficulty (see Brasoveanu & Dotlačil 2019). If inverse discourse readings are indeed available in Dutch scrambling structures, they are expected to come at a higher processing cost here as well, measured in the experiment by an expected decrease in judgment scores and an increase in reaction times. An additional prediction is that, since time-point adverbs do not affect discourse structure, this effect emerges only in sentences with adverbs that are sensitive to focus placement.

This section presents a syntactic account of the experimental data presented in Section 3. It is important to note that the account proposed here is just one possible grammatical system for capturing the new facts. The experiments in the previous section do not test this proposal, instead the experimental data are logically prior to it and therefore feed it. The main claim of the proposal presented here is that the locus of scrambling is in syntax, while discourse-interpretive effects are derived post-syntactically at the syntax-pragmatics interface.

Building on the finding that mismatches between syntax and pragmatics are available in Dutch scrambling structures, I argue that such mismatches are derived by familiar scope-shifting operations that render movement invisible to interpretation or to phonetics. These operations allow constituents to be interpreted at a position different from where they are phonetically realized (Fox 1999; 2000; Reinhart 2006). It follows that this analysis requires scrambling to involve movement (following e.g. Vanden Wyngaerd 1989; Schaeffer 1997; 2000; Broekhuis 2008). I furthermore assume that discourse relations are uniquely represented at a distinct grammatical level dedicated to information structure (e.g. Vallduví 1992; Lambrecht 1994; Bailyn 1995; 2012; Erteschik-Shir 1997; Zubizarreta 1998), which I will refer to as Functional Form (after Bailyn 1995; 2012), and that discourse relations are derived from c-command (cf. Neeleman & van de Koot 2012). Specifically, focus sensitive adverbs by default accommodate the sentence focus within their scope, but some freedom is allowed in their relative placement (see also Foolen et al. 2009).

A definite object’s discourse status depends on its syntactic environment. The default discourse reading of a definite object is focal (discourse-new) when located within the c-command domain of a focus sensitive expression, and non-focal (discourse-old) when located outside of this domain. However, this discourse template can be overruled by contextual factors, as demonstrated in the experiments presented in Section 3. Additional processing difficulty is incurred when this happens, reflected in the behavioral data as a decrease in judgment scores and a rise in judgment times. No such effect emerged in sentences with a time-point adverb; here definite objects can be interpreted as focal (discourse-new) or non-focal (discourse-old) without incurring additional processing difficulty, regardless of their position relative to the adverb. We can conclude from this that time-point adverbs do not affect discourse structure.6 I will exclude these adverbs from further analysis and concentrate on scrambling structures with a focus sensitive adverb instead. Importantly, an analysis of the discourse effects in scrambling must adequately represent the cognitive consequences associated with revisions of the discourse representation, given that the processor has as one of its tasks to identify discourse relations. In this section, I argue that the processing difficulty associated with mismatches in scrambling structures is a reflection of scope-shifting operations that are required to achieve the inverse reading.

The data presented in the last section closely resemble patterns attested in the experimental literature on scope ambiguities. Consider the ambiguous sentence and its possible readings in (13).

A well-established finding in the psycholinguistic literature is that the interpreter initially consults the linear order of elements to determine scope relations, as in (13a), and that computation of the inverse reading in (13b) comes at an increased processing cost (e.g. Tunstall 1998; Anderson 2004; Reinhart 2006). Various theories of scope relations have been proposed to account for these behavioral effects (see Brasoveanu & Dotlačil 2019 for an overview). For instance, Neeleman & van de Koot (2012) propose that the inverse reading is computed by means of scope extension (after Williams 1994).

Another analysis of scope ambiguous constructions argues that the inverse reading is derived by covert scope-shifting operations (Fox 1999; 2000; Reinhart 2006). In what follows, a version of this analysis will be adopted to account for Dutch scrambling constructions. Scope-shifting operations come in two flavors, reconstruction and Quantifier Raising, and create a configuration for which the structural representations at LF and PF do not match. These operations are subject to economy principles and apply only when an interpretation cannot otherwise be derived. Fox (1999) argues that sentences like (14) demonstrate the availability of scope reconstruction. This sentence is ambiguous with regard to the content of the quantifier’s scope. The sentence has a reading in which a specific person from New York is very likely to win the lottery, and a broader reading in which the city of New York is very likely to yield a winner.

According to Fox, the ambiguity in (14) is due to the fact that QP’s scope can be construed at its base position or at its landing site. In the former case, the quantifier is interpreted at a position that is different from where it is phonetically realized, and, as Fox (1999: 158) puts it, “the semantic effects of movement are “undone”.”

Quantifier Raising, by contrast, is a scope-shifting operation that yields the exact opposite effect. Scope-ambiguous sentences like (13), repeated here as (15), are normally interpreted in linear fashion, see (15a). In order to derive the inverse reading, the QP every tree raises to a position to the left of a kid at LF. This covert operation is illustrated in (15b).

The interpretation site of the quantified phrase in (15b) is again different from where it is phonetically realized, although this time the movement is invisible at PF, while it does trigger a semantic effect. I propose that the experimental data from Section 3 can be explained by incorporating pragmatic equivalents of scope reconstruction and Quantifier Raising into the analysis.

Having established that mismatches between syntax and pragmatics are grammatical but marked in Dutch scrambling constructions, I now proceed to present a syntactic account for them. I assume that scrambling is movement prompted by a scrambling feature [+Σ] (see Grewendorf & Sabel 1999; Sauerland 1999; Kawamura 2004), which is optionally assigned to lexical items that enter the derivation. Crucially, the [+Σ] feature does not have (discourse-)semantic content (see Haider 2020). Definite objects that are equipped with the [+Σ] feature move to a scrambled position in syntax, while [–Σ] objects remain in unscrambled position. With the addition of pragmatic equivalents of the scope-shifting operations described above, the analysis predicts that both word orders in scrambling constructions have two possible sites for pragmatic interpretation.

The structure in (16) represents the base order of a scrambling clause. I assume that direct objects are generated as complements of the verb and that (focus sensitive) adverbs adjoin to vP. The object DP in this example does not carry the [+Σ] feature and thus remains in unscrambled position. Because the object is located within the c-command domain of the focus sensitive adverb, it is by default interpreted as focal (discourse-new). The mapping between syntax and pragmatics can then proceed straightforwardly: if the object is selected as the focus in discourse, its discourse status matches its syntactic environment.

Suppose now that the context that follows requires the verb instead of the object to be in focus. In this scenario, there is a mismatch between syntax and pragmatics, because the object appears in the focus sensitive adverb’s c-command domain, but is not selected as the focus in discourse. The data in Section 3 prove that this reading is a genuine option for the surface sequence in (16), albeit a marked one. I submit that this reading can be derived by a pragmatic equivalent of Quantifier Raising (Fox 2000). Specifically, the object DP de kok ‘the cook’ in (16) covertly migrates to a higher position outside of the scope of the focus sensitive adverb to resolve the syntax–pragmatics mismatch, as in (17). This “anti-focus” process yields the inverse discourse reading, as the object is now interpreted in a position different from where it is phonetically realized. I will refer to this process as Pragmatic Raising.

Pragmatic Raising is subject to the same economy conditions as Quantifier Raising and only applies when the appropriate discourse interpretation cannot otherwise be derived. I take the cognitive effort associated with Pragmatic Raising to be reflected in the experimental data as increased reaction times and decreased judgment scores (see Section 3.1.5). Participants accepted a sentence less often and took longer to respond to a sentence when it contained a non-focal object in unscrambled position, as compared to a focal object in the same position, but such syntax–pragmatics mismatches are nonetheless fully acceptable.

Now consider the structure in (18). The object DP in this example is assigned the [+Σ] feature and consequently moves to (at least) the outer edge of vP (Chomsky 2001).7 In this configuration, the object is not located within the focus sensitive adverb’s c-command domain and therefore does not normally receive a focal (discourse-new) reading.

However, the experimental data indicate that a focal reading is in fact possible for scrambled objects. Once again, the situation leads to a mismatch between syntax and pragmatics, which can be accounted for if scope reconstruction is taken to apply at the syntax-pragmatics interface. The object DP can be interpreted at its base position inside the focus sensitive adverb’s c-command domain (i.e. at the site of its lower copy in (18)), or at its landing site outside of the focus sensitive adverb’s c-command domain (i.e. at the site of its higher copy in (18)). To paraphrase Fox (1999), the discourse-semantic effect of the movement can be “undone”. This is demonstrated in (19).

Like Pragmatic Raising, reconstruction incurs additional processing difficulty. Mismatches between syntax and pragmatics are acceptable, but participants took longer to respond to sentences with a focal object in scrambled position than to sentences with a non-focal object in this position. The mismatching conditions were hardly ever rejected, but did receive lower judgment scores than the matching conditions. I take these differences to reflect the cognitive effort associated with reconstruction.

Note that the scope-shifting operations illustrated in (17) and (19) are each other’s mirror image. An analysis that takes scope-shifting operations to apply at the pragmatics interface goes a long way in explaining the experimental data. Syntax–pragmatics mismatches yield acceptable but marked structures, which in the experiment led to a decrease in judgment scores and an increase in reaction times. This section argued that these effects result from cognitively costly scope-shifting operations; Pragmatic Raising and reconstruction. I conclude that scrambling is an optional movement that sometimes can be invisible to phonetics (Pragmatic Raising) or to discourse-interpretation (reconstruction).

The central claim of this article is that definite object scrambling in Dutch is not as restricted as commonly claimed in the literature. Sentences in which surface order and discourse structure do not match are perfectly acceptable by virtue of the parser’s ability to shift scope relations. These scope-shifting operations, reconstruction and Pragmatic Raising, are cognitively costly and induce additional processing difficulty. Hence, scrambling is informed but not determined by discourse conditions.