Cover not available
Article published In:
Studies of Bilingual Processing Presented to Kenneth I. Forster
Edited by Nan Jiang
[Journal of Second Language Studies 4:2] 2021
► pp. 327–352

Relative clause processing in L1 and L2 English

A maze task investigation

| University of Texas at Arlington, USA
| University of Texas at Arlington, USA

This study investigates the locus of processing difficulty in English object-extracted relative clauses during both native and non-native sentence comprehension. Two L-maze experiments were conducted – one with English native speakers (n = 48) and another with highly proficient Chinese learners of English (n = 20) – to compare the processing of object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) with that of subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs). Both participants groups revealed clear processing costs for ORC sentences. In both cases, this processing difficulty was localized at the beginning of the ORC, and specifically at the article that introduced the ORC subject (The soldier who the sailor roughly pushed….). These findings are taken to indicate that structural expectations play a central role in the first- and second-language processing of English relative clauses and of complex sentences more generally.

Keywords: English relative clauses, ORC processing difficulty, sentence comprehension, maze task, L1 sentence processing, L2 sentence processing
Article outline
  • Experiment 1
    • Method
      • Participants
      • Materials and design
      • Procedure
    • Results
    • Discussion
  • Experiment 2
    • Method
      • Participants
      • Materials and design
      • Procedure
    • Results
    • Discussion
  • General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 3 August 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jsls.21008.wit
References
Baek, S.
(2019) Locus of difficulty in processing L2 English object relative clauses: A study with Korean university students. Language and Linguistics, 831, 93–120. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barr, D., Levy, R., Scheepers, C., & Tily, H.
(2013) Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 681, 255–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S.
(2015) Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boyce, V., Futrell, R., & Levy, R. P.
In press). Maze Made Easy: Better and easier measurement of incremental processing difficulty, Journal of Memory and Language, 1111. DOI logo
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C.
(2006) Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 271, 3–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clifton, C., Jr., & Frazier, L.
(1989) Comprehending sentences with long-distance dependencies. In G. Carlson & M. K. Tanenhaus (Eds.), Linguistic structure in language processing (pp. 273–317). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cunnings, I.
(2017) Parsing and working memory in bilingual sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 201, 659–678. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dussias, P. E., & Cramer Scaltz, T. R.
(2008) Spanish–English L2 speakers’ use of subcategorization bias information in the resolution of temporary ambiguity during second language reading. Acta Psychologica, 1281, 501–513. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Forster, K. I., & Forster, J. C.
(2003) DMDX: A Windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 351, 116–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Forster, K. I., Guerrera, C., & Elliot, L.
(2009) The maze task: Measuring forced incremental sentence processing time. Behavior Research Methods, 411, 163–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frazier, L., & Clifton, C. Jr.
(1989) Successive cyclicity in the grammar and the parser. Language and Cognitive Processes, 281, 331–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gennari, S. P., & MacDonald, M. C.
(2008) Semantic indeterminacy in object relative clauses. Journal of Memory and Language, 581, 161–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibson, E.
(1998) Syntactic complexity: Locality of syntactic dependencies. Cognition, 681, 1–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levy, R., & Gibson, E.
(2013) Surprisal, the PDC, and the primary locus of processing difficulty in relative clauses. Frontiers in Psychology, 41, 229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gordon, P. C., & Lowder, M. W.
(2012) Complex sentence processing: A review of theoretical perspectives on the comprehension of relative clauses. Language and Linguistics Compass, 61, 403–415. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R., & Johnson, M.
(2001) Memory interference during language processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 271, 1411–1423.Google Scholar
(2004) Effects of noun phrase type on sentence complexity. Journal of Memory and Language, 511, 97–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R., Johnson, M., & Lee, Y.
(2006) Similarity-based interference during language comprehension: Evidence from eye tracking during reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 321, 1304–1321.Google Scholar
Grodner, D. J., & Gibson, E.ȂA.ȂF.
(2005) Consequences of the serial nature of linguistic input for sentential complexity. Cognitive Science, 291, 261–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, J.
(2001) A probabilistic early parser as a psycholinguistic model. In Proceedings of NAACL (Vol. 21, pp. 159–166).Google Scholar
Hatfield, H.
(2014) Self-guided reading:Touch-based measures of syntactic processing. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 451, 121–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hatfield, H., & Artos, T.
(2016) The locus of processing for object relative clauses and the impact of methodology. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 21, 190–195. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Izumi, S.
(2003) Processing difficulty in comprehension and production of relative clauses by learners of English as a second language. Language Learning, 531, 285–323. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M. L., Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C.
(2011) The sentence-composition effect: Processing of complex sentences depends on the configuration of common noun phrases versus unusual noun phrases. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1401, 707–724. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
King, J., & Just, M. A.
(1991) Individual differences in syntactic processing: The role of working memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 301, 580–602. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
King, J. W., & Kutas, M.
(1995) Who did what and when? Using word- and clause-level ERPs to monitor working memory usage in reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 71, 376–395. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B., & Christensen, R.ȂH.ȂB.
(2017) lmerTest Package: Tests in Linear Mixed Effects Models. Journal of Statistical Software, 82(13), 1–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lenth, R. V.
(2020) emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means. R package version 1.5.3.Google Scholar
Levy, R.
(2008) Expectation-based syntactic comprehension. Cognition, 1061, 1126–1177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levy, R., Fedorenko, E., & Gibson, E.
(2013) The syntactic complexity of Russian relative clauses. Journal of Memory and Language, 691, 461–495. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewis, R. L., Vasishth, S., & Van Dyke, J. A.
(2006) Computational principles of working memory in sentence comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 101, 447–454. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lim, J. Y., & Christianson, K.
(2013) Second language sentence processing in reading for comprehension and translation. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 161, 518–537. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, M. C., & Christiansen, M. H.
(2002) Reassessing working memory: A comment on Just & Carpenter (1992) and Waters & Caplan (1996). Psychological Review, 1091, 35–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marinis, T., Roberts, L., Felser, C., & Clahsen, H.
(2005) Gaps in second language processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 271, 53–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, H. M., King, J. W., & Kutas, M.
(1997) Event-related potentials elicited by spoken relative clauses. Cognitive Brain Research, 51, 193–203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nicol, J. L., Forster, K. I., & Vereš, C.
(1997) Subject–verb agreement processes in comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 361, 569–587. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Omaki, A., & Ariji, K.
(2005) Testing and attesting the use of structural information in L2 sentence processing. In L. Dekydtspotter, R. A. Sprouse, & A. Liljestrand (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (pp. 205–218). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Pliatsikas, C., & Marinis, T.
(2013) Processing empty categories in a second language: When naturalistic exposure fills the (intermediate) gap. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 161, 167–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Price, I. K., & Witzel, J.
(2017) Sources of relative clause processing difficulty: Evidence from Russian. Journal of Memory and Language, 971, 208–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Qiao, X., Shen, L., & Forster, K. I.
(2012) Relative clause processing in Mandarin: Evidence from the maze task. Language and Cognitive Processes, 271, 611–630. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Development Core Team
(2020) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing Vienna.Google Scholar
Rastle, K., Harrington, J., & Coltheart, M.
(2002) 358,534 nonwords: The ARC Nonword Database. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55A1, 1339–1362. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reali, F., & Christiansen, M. H.
(2007) Processing of relative clauses is made easier by frequency of occurrence. Journal of Memory and Language, 571, 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roland, D., Dick, F., & Elman, J. L.
(2007) Frequency of basic English grammatical structures: A corpus analysis. Journal of Memory and Language, 571, 348–379. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Staub, A.
(2010) Eye movements and processing difficulty in object relative clauses. Cognition, 1161, 71–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Staub, A., Dillon, B., & Clifton, C.
(2017) The matrix verb as a source of comprehension difficulty in object relative sentences. Cognitive Science, 411, 1353–1376. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stowe, L. A.
(1986) Parsing WH-constructions: Evidence for on-line gap location. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11, 227–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Street, J. A.
(2017) This is the native speaker that the non-native speaker outperformed: Individual, education-related differences in the processing and interpretation of Object Relative Clauses by native and non-native speakers of English. Language Sciences, 591, 192–203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traxler, M. J., Morris, R. K., & Seely, R. E.
(2002) Processing subject and object relative clauses: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 471, 69–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traxler, M. J., Williams, R. S., Blozis, S. A., & Morris, R. K.
(2005) Working memory, animacy, and verb class in the processing of relative clauses. Journal of Memory and Language, 531, 204–224. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wanner, E., & Maratsos, M.
(1978) An ATN approach to comprehension. In M. Halle, J. Bresnan, & G. Miller (Eds.), Linguistic theory and psychological reality (pp. 119–160). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Warren, T., & Gibson, E.
(2002) The influence of referential processing on sentence complexity. Cognition, 851, 79–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weiss, S., Müller, H. M., Schack, B., King, J. W., Kutas, M., & Rappelsberger, P.
(2005) Increased neuronal communication accompanying sentence comprehension. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 571, 129–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Witzel, J., & Forster, K.
(2014) Lexical co-occurrence and ambiguity resolution. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 291, 158–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Witzel, J., Witzel, N., & Nicol, J.
(2012) Deeper than shallow: Evidence for structure-based parsing biases in second-language sentence processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 331, 419–456. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Witzel, J., & Witzel, N.
(2016) Incremental sentence processing in Japanese: A maze investigation into scrambled and control sentences. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 451, 475–505. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Witzel, N., Witzel, J., & Forster, K. I.
(2012) Comparisons of online reading paradigms: Eye tracking, moving-window, and maze. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 411, 105–128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wu, S. & Ma, Z.
(2020) How is Chinese reading affected by under-specification and over-specification? Evidence from self-paced reading experiments. Journal of Pragmatics 1551:213–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xia, V. Y., White, L., & Guzzo, N. B.
In press). Intervention in relative clauses: Effects of relativized minimality on L2 representation and processing. Second Language Research. DOI logo