Constraints on L2 learners’ processing of wh-dependencies

Evidence from eye movements

Ian Cunnings | University of Essex

Claire Batterham | University of Essex

Claudia Felser | University of Essex

Harald Clahsen | University of Essex

Using the eye-movement monitoring technique, the present study examined whether wh-dependency formation is sensitive to island constraints in second language (L2) sentence comprehension, and whether the presence of an intervening relative clause island has any effects on learners’ ability to ultimately resolve long wh-dependencies. Participants included proficient learners of L2 English from typologically different language backgrounds (German, Chinese), as well as a group of native English-speaking controls. Our results indicate that both the learners and the native speakers were sensitive to relative clause islands during processing, irrespective of typological differences between the learners’ L1s, but that the learners had more difficulty than native speakers linking distant wh-fillers to their lexical subcategorizers during processing. We provide a unified processing-based account for our findings.

Published online: 15 December 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.53.04cun

Cited by

Cited by 12 other publications

BOXELL, OLIVER & CLAUDIA FELSER

2017. Sensitivity to parasitic gaps inside subject islands in native and non-native sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20:3 ► pp. 494 ff.

CUNNINGS, IAN

2017. Parsing and Working Memory in Bilingual Sentence Processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20:4 ► pp. 659 ff.

Felser, Claudia, Ian Cunnings, Claire Batterham & Harald Clahsen

2012. THE TIMING OF ISLAND EFFECTS IN NONNATIVE SENTENCE PROCESSING. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 34:1 ► pp. 67 ff.

Fuchs, Caro, Els Vlooswijk, Uzay Kaymak & Anna Wilbik

2018. In 2018 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI), ► pp. 189 ff.

Herbay, Alexandre C., Laura M. Gonnerman & Shari R. Baum

2018. How Do French–English Bilinguals Pull Verb Particle Constructions Off? Factors Influencing Second Language Processing of Unfamiliar Structures at the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Frontiers in Psychology 9

Jessen, Anna & Claudia Felser

2019. Reanalysing object gaps during non-native sentence processing: Evidence from ERPs. Second Language Research 35:2 ► pp. 285 ff.

Jessen, Anna, Julia Festman, Oliver Boxell & Claudia Felser

2017. Native and Non-native Speakers’ Brain Responses to Filled Indirect Object Gaps. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 46:5 ► pp. 1319 ff.

Kim, Eunah, Soondo Baek & Annie Tremblay

2015. The Role of Island Constraints in Second Language Sentence Processing. Language Acquisition 22:4 ► pp. 384 ff.

Li, Rui, Zhiyi Zhang, Chuanbin Ni, Wei Xiao, Junyan Wei & Haoyun Dai

2018. Examining the Functional Category in Chinese–English Code-Switching: Evidence from the Eye-Movements. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 47:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Roberts, Leah

2018. In The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition, ► pp. 30 ff.

Rothman, Jason & Roumyana Slabakova

2018. THE GENERATIVE APPROACH TO SLA AND ITS PLACE IN MODERN SECOND LANGUAGE STUDIES. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 40:2 ► pp. 417 ff.

Stepanov, Arthur, Sara Andreetta, Penka Stateva, Adam Zawiszewski & Itziar Laka

2020. Anomaly detection in the processing of complex syntax by early L2 learners. Second Language Research 36:3 ► pp. 371 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 may 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.