Abstract
This paper presents the results of experiments that compared relative clause processing in L2 speakers of Mandarin and English. Using a self-paced reading task, the processing of sentences containing subject-gap and object-gap relative clauses was examined. The results found that both L2 groups experienced theoretically-predicted relative clause gap site effects, namely, the L2 Mandarin group processed subject-gap relative clauses more slowly, and the L2 English group processed object-gap relative clauses more slowly. Detailed analysis revealed that the processing slowdown for subject-gap clauses in the Mandarin L2 group occurred at the relative clause verb, argument and head, and that in the English L2 group, processing slowdown for the object-gap clauses occurred at the relative clause verb. These results are explained as being due to the high processing cost of integrating a filler and gap, and by assuming that L2 speakers have particular difficulty keeping an antecedent active in memory when processing a long-distance dependency.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 107-146 |
Journal | Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association |
Volume | 43 |
Issue number | 2 |
State | Published - 2008 |