Cover not available
Part of
Current Perspectives on Generative SLA - Processing, Influence, and Interfaces: Selected proceedings of the 15th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference
Edited by Anne Dahl, Marta Velnić and Kjersti Faldet Listhaug
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 70] 2024
► pp. 199–222

Chapter 8
Offline L2-English relative clause attachment preferences

The effects of L1-Japanese and L2 proficiency

| University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

This paper adds to the debate on second language (L2) relative clause (RC) attachment preferences by investigating offline L2-English preferences by first-language (L1) speakers of Japanese, which has strong head-finality and free word order (Ito et al., 2021; Kamide & Mitchell, 1998; Yamada et al., 2017). A forced-choice task tested L1- English and L1-Japanese/L2-English speakers with RCs that were pragmatically disambiguated to bias high or low attachment or had neutral bias. The L2 group’s high-attachment preference across all conditions compared to L1-English speakers was statistically significant. No L2 proficiency effects found. As English and Japanese are predicted to be influenced by the competing parsing principles of Recency and Predicate Proximity, respectively, these results suggest that attachment preferences are transferrable to L2.

Keywords: relative clauses, attachment bias, recency, predicate proximity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1RC attachment preferences
    • 2.2RC attachment preferences in Japanese
    • 2.3Prior studies on L1-Japanese L2-English RC attachment
    • 2.4L2 proficiency and L2 RC attachment
  • 3.Research questions
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Materials
      • 4.1.1Norming items
      • 4.1.2Experimental items
    • 4.2Participants
    • 4.3Procedure
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1NS vs. L2
    • 5.2L2 proficiency analysis
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (41)
Aguilar, M., Ferré, P., Gavilán, J. M., Hinojosa, J. A., & Demestre, J.
(2021) The actress was on the balcony, after all: Eye-tracking locality and PR-availability effects in Spanish. Cognition, 211, 104624. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Allan, D.
(1992) The Oxford Placement Test. Oxford University Press.Google 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
Carreiras, M., & Clifton Jr., C.
(1999) Another word on parsing relative clauses: Eyetracking evidence from Spanish and English. Memory & Cognition, 27(5), 826–833. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carreiras, M., Salillas, E., & Barber, H.
(2004) Event-related potentials elicited during parsing of ambiguous relative clauses in Spanish. Cognitive Brain Research, 20, 98–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuetos, F., & Mitchell, D. C.
(1988) Cross-linguistic differences in parsing: Restrictions on the use of the Late Closure strategy in Spanish. Cognition, 30, 73–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dinçtopal-Deniz, N.
(2010) Relative clause attachment preferences of Turkish L2 speakers of English: Shallow parsing in the L2? In B. VanPatten & J. Jegerski (Eds.), Research in second language processing and parsing (pp. 27–63). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2022) Processing syntactic and semantic information in the L2: Evidence for differential cue-weighting in the L1 and L2. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 25, 713–725. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dussias, P. E.
(2003) Syntactic ambiguity resolution in L2 learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25(4), 529–557. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ehrlich, K., Fernández, E., Fodor, J., Stenshoel, E., & Vinereanu, M.
(1999) Low attachment of relative clauses: New data from Swedish, Norwegian and Romanian. Poster presentation at the 12th Annual CUNY conference on human sentence processing. New York, NY, March 18–20.
Felser, C., Roberts, L., Marinis, T., & Gross, R.
(2003) The processing of ambiguous sentences by first and second language learners of English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 453–489. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. D.
(1998) Learning to parse? Journal of Psycholinguistics, 27, 285–319. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2002) Prosodic disambiguation in silent reading. In M. Hirotani (Ed.), Proceedings of the North East Linguistics Study (pp. 559–586). University of Massachusetts, Amherst. [URL]Google Scholar
Fodor, J. D., & Frazier, L.
(1980) Is the human parsing mechanism an ATN? Cognition, 8, 417–459. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frazier, L.
(1987) Sentence processing: A tutorial review. In M. Coltheart (Ed.), Attention and Performance XII: The psychology of reading (pp. 559–586). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Frazier, L., & Clifton, C.
(1996) Construal. The MIT PressGoogle Scholar
Frenck-Mestre, C., & Pynte, J.
(1997) Syntactic ambiguity resolution while reading in second and native languages. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 50(1), 119–148. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibson, E., Pearlmutter, N., Canseco-Gonzalez, E., & Hickok, G.
(1996) Recency preference in the human sentence processing mechanism. Cognition, 59, 23–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goad, H., Guzzo, N. B., & White, L.
(2021) Parsing ambiguous relative clauses in L2 English: Learner sensitivity to prosodic cues. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 43(1), 83–108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grillo, N. & Costa, J.
(2014) A novel argument for the universality of parsing principles. Cognition, 133, 156–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hemforth, B., Fernandez, S., Clifton, C. Jr., Frazier, L., Konieczny, L., & Walter, M.
(2015) Relative clause attachment in German, English, Spanish and French: Effects of position and length. Lingua, 166, 43–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ito, K., Koizumi, M., & Kiyama, S.
(2021) How native Japanese speakers solve ambiguous relative clauses in their L1 and L2: Evidence from self-paced reading of Japanese and English. Buckeye East Asian Linguistics, 5, 4–12. Retrieved on 16 May 2024 from [URL]Google Scholar
Jiang, N.
(2004) Semantic transfer and its implications for vocabulary teaching in a second language. The Modern Language Journal, 88, 416–432. [URL]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jun, S-A.
(2003) Prosodic phrasing and attachment preferences. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32, 219–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kamide, Y., & Mitchell, D.
(1997) Relative clause attachment: Nondeterminism in Japanese parsing. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26(2), 247–254. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kamide, Y., Mitchell, D. C., Fodor, J. D., & Inoue, A.
(1998) Relative clause attachment ambiguity: Further evidence from Japanese. Poster presentation at the 11th annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 19–21 March.
Kim, J. H., & Christianson, K.
(2013) Sentence complexity and working memory effects in ambiguity resolution. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 42, 393–411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, D. C., & Cuetos, F.
(1991) The origins of parsing strategies. In C. Smith (Ed.), Current issues in natural language processing (pp. 1–12). University of Austin.Google Scholar
Miyamoto, E. T., Nakamura, M., & Takahashi, S.
(2004) Processing relative clauses in Japanese with two attachment sites. In Proceedings of the 34th annual meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society (Vol. 1, pp. 441–452). GLSA.Google Scholar
Miyao, M., & Omaki A.
(2006) No ambiguity about it: Korean learners of Japanese have a clear attachment preference. In D. Bamman & T. Magnitskaia (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Nakano, Y., & Wang, M.
(2011) Relative-clause attachments in L1 and L2 English of Japanese learners: An offline questionnaire and eye-tracking studies. Poster presented at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, July 19–23, York. Retrieved on 16 May 2024 from [URL]
Ono, H.
(2019) The high attachment preference in Japanese relative clause processing: A short summary. ICU Working Papers in Linguistics VII, 51–56. Retrieved on 16 May 2024 from [URL]
Otake, A.
(2018) Japanese ESL learners’ relative-clause attachment preferences for complex NP sentences. Komaba Journal of English Education, 9, 21–39. Retrieved on 16 May 2024 from [URL]Google Scholar
Papadopoulou, D., & Clahsen, H.
(2003) Parsing strategies in L1 and L2 sentence processing: A study of relative clause attachment in Greek. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 501–528. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Park, H. I., Solon, M., Dehghan-Chaleshtori, M., & Ghanbar, H.
(2022) Proficiency reporting practices in research on second language acquisition: Have we made any progress? Language Learning, 72(1), 198–236. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team
(2021) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [URL]
Rohde, H., Levy, R., & Kehler, A.
(2011) Anticipating explanations in relative clause processing. Cognition, 118, 339–358. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shen, X.
(2006) Late assignment of syntax theory: Evidence from Chinese and English (Doctoral dissertation). University of Exeter. The University of Exeter Repository. [URL]
Uludağ, O.
(2020) Transfer of L1 processing strategies to the interpretation of sentence-level L2 input: a cross-linguistic comparison on the resolution of relative clause attachment ambiguities. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6(2), 155–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yamada, T., Arai, M., & Hirose, Y.
(2017) Unforced revision in processing relative clause association ambiguity in Japanese: Evidence against revision as last resort. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46, 661–714. DOI logoGoogle Scholar