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The extreme sentence processing difficulty of doubly center-embedded relative clause (2CE-RC) constructions has elicited many proposed explanations over many decades. Improbably, we offer a phonological explanation. We maintain: (a) that a sentence can't be easily parsed syntactically if it can't be assigned a supportive prosodic contour, and (b) that the flat structure of prosodic phrasing is hard to fit to the densely hierarchical structure of a 2CE-RC sentence.

Examples like (1) are cited in the literature; (2) is from an experiment by Gibson and Thomas (1999). Short or long, both are pronounced awkwardly, with 'list intonation'. Syntactic parsing is so difficult that they are often judged more grammatical when the second VP is (ungrammatically!) omitted, as in (3): this is the "missing VP illusion".

(1) ✔☹ The boy the dog the cat scratched bit died.

(2) ✔☹ The ancient manuscript that the grad student who the new card catalog had confused a great deal was studying in the library was missing a page.

(3) *☺ The ancient manuscript that the grad student who the new card catalog had confused a great deal was missing a page.

We show that the correct nested syntactic structure [NP1 [NP2 [NP3 VP1] VP2 ] VP3] is achievable if prosodic phrasing can package up the center elements [NP2 NP3 VP1 VP2] together. Because prosodic phrases must meet length requirements, this is feasible only if the center constituents are all short, and the outer constituents (NP1 and VP3) are long enough to constitute separate prosodic phrases. This is the case in (4). Experiments confirm that examples like (4) are easier to pronounce and understand than examples like (5), which has the same overall sentence length but has its weight in the wrong places: skinny outer constituents and chubby inner ones. (Read them aloud!)

(4) ✔☺ The rusty old ceiling pipes that the plumber my dad trained fixed continue to leak occasionally.

(5) ✔☹ The pipes that the unlicensed plumber the new janitor reluctantly assisted tried to repair burst.

An explanation is offered on the assumption that syntax-prosody alignment is achieved by syntactic readjustment to the needs of prosody (Chomsky and Halle 1968, contra Selkirk 2000).

This paper explores the idea that many languages have a phonological Alignment constraint that requires alignment between the tensed verb and C. This Align constraint is what is behind verb-second and many types of inversion phenomena generally. Numerous facts about English subject-auxiliary inversion and French stylistic inversion fall out from the way this Align constraint is stated in each language. The paper arrives at the Align constraint by way of a detailed re-examination of English quotative inversion. The syntactic literature has overwhelmingly accepted Collins and Branigan's (1997) conclusion that the subject in quotative inversion is low, within the VP. This paper re-examines the properties of quotative inversion and shows that Collins and Branigan's analysis is incorrect: quotative inversion subjects are high, in Spec-TP, and what moves is a full phrase, not just the verb. The constraints on quotative inversion, including the famous transitivity constraint, fall out from two independently necessary constraints: (1) a constraint on what can be stranded by phrasal movement like VP fronting, and (2) the aforementioned Align constraint which requires alignment between V and C.

Paper draft found here.