Various studies have investigated the formal properties of Spanish noun ellipsis (Saab 2010, Depiante & Masullo 2001, among others). The theory developed by Saab (2004, 2010) proposes that noun ellipsis in this language is licensed by matching two components between the elided noun and its antecedent: the gender feature and the lexical root. Crucially, there is no constraint requiring the matching of number features between these two elements. This study presents an experimental approach to investigate if Spanish speakers’ online and offline interpretation of noun ellipsis reflects this theoretical distinction. A between subjects, combined eye tracking and picture selection task asks participants to identify the referent of an elided noun. The elided noun phrase matches or mismatches the antecedent in number or gender. While the test phrase is played, participants’ gaze patterns are monitored before they point to the referent of the ellipsis at the end of the phrase, thus providing an online and offline measurement. This task was completed with both adult and child participants to see if the interpretation of ellipsis develops over time. The results provide evidence that for adults, gender mismatches are more difficult for participants to process than number mismatches, which is reflected in slower reaction times and fewer looks to target on gender mismatching trials. We also show that this pattern in adults is also reflected in the children’s pointing data. Additionally, children’s reduced performance on number items involving plural markers is interpreted as a reflection of the delayed acquisition of plural morphology that has been previously documented in Spanish-speaking Chilean Children.
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