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During the temporal delay between the filler and gap sites in long-distance depen-
dencies, the “active filler” strategy can be implemented in two ways: the filler phrase can be
actively maintained in working memory (“maintenance account”), or it can be retrieved only
when the parser posits a gap (“retrieval account”). The current study tested whether filler
content is maintained during the processing of dependencies. Using a self-paced reading
paradigm, we compared reading times on a noun phrase (NP) between the filler and gap
sites in object relative clauses, to reading times on an NP between the antecedent and ellipsis
sites in ellipsis sentences. While in the former type of dependency a filler by hypothesis can
be maintained, in the latter there is no indication for the existence of a dependency prior
to the ellipsis site, and hence no maintenance. By varying the amount of similarity-based
interference between the antecedent and integration sites, we tested the influence of hold-
ing an unresolved dependency on reading times. Significantly increased reading times due to
interference were found only in the object relative condition, and not in the ellipsis condition,
demonstrating filler maintenance costs. The fact that these costs were measured as an effect
on similarity-based interference indicates that the maintained representation of the filler must
include at least some of the features shared by the interfering NP.