Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-v2bm5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T04:08:27.084Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sensitivity to parasitic gaps inside subject islands in native and non-native sentence processing*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2016

OLIVER BOXELL  and
CLAUDIA FELSER
OLIVER BOXELL
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam
CLAUDIA FELSER*
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam
*
Address for correspondence: Dr. Claudia Felser, University of Potsdam, Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24–25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We report the results from an eye-movement monitoring study that investigated late German–English bilinguals’ sensitivity to parasitic gaps inside subject islands. The online reading experiment was complemented by an offline scalar judgement task. The results from the offline task confirmed that for both native and non-native speakers, subject island environments must normally be non-finite in order to host a parasitic gap. The analysis of the reading-time data showed that, while native speakers posited parasitic gaps in non-finite environments only, the non-native group initially overgenerated parasitic gaps, showing delayed sensitivity to island-inducing cues during online processing. Taken together, our findings show that non-native comprehenders are sensitive to exceptions to island constraints that are not attested in their native language and also rare in the L2 input. They need more time than native comprehenders to compute the linguistic representations over which the relevant restrictions are defined, however.

Keywords

Parasitic gapsisland constraintsbilingual sentence processingeye-movement monitoringEnglish
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , May 2017 , pp. 494 - 511
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Supplementary material can be found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1366728915000942
*

This research was supported by an Alexander-von-Humboldt professorship awarded to Harald Clahsen. We thank Robert Kluender, Matt Wagers and the BLC action editor and reviewers for helpful comments and discussion.

References

Aldwayan, S., Fiorentino, R., & Gabriele, A. (2010). Evidence of syntactic constraints in the processing of wh-movement: A study of Najdi Arabic learners of English. In VanPatten, B. & Jegerski, J. (eds.). Research in second language processing and parsing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 65–86.Google Scholar
Allan, D. (2004). The Oxford Placement Test. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google 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, 68, 255–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bošković, Ž. (1996). Selection and the categorial status of infinitival complements. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 14, 269–304.Google Scholar
Chaves, R. (2013). An expectation-based account of subject islands and parasitism. Journal of Linguistics, 49, 285–327.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1962). The logical basis of linguistic theory. In Halle, M. (ed.) Preprints of the papers for the ninth International Congress of Linguists, 509–74.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1973). Conditions on transformations. In Anderson, S. and Kiparsky, P. (eds.). A festschrift for Morris Halle. New York: Holt, Rinchart & Winston.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006). How native-like is non-native language processing? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10 (12), 564–570.Google Scholar
Clifton, C., & Frazier, L. (1989). Comprehending sentences with long-distance dependencies. In Carlson, G. & Tanenhaus, M. (eds.). Linguistic structure in language processing. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Culicover, P. (2001). Parasitic gaps: A history. In Culicover, P. & Postal, P. (eds.). Parasitic gaps. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 3–68.Google Scholar
Cunnings, I., Batterham, C., Felser, C., & Clahsen, H. (2010). Constraints on L2 learners’ processing of wh-dependencies: Evidence from eye movements. In VanPatten, B. & Jegerski, J. (eds.). Research in second language processing and parsing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 87–110.Google Scholar
Dallas, A., & Kaan, E. (2008). Second language processing of filler-gap dependencies by late learners. Language and Linguistics Compass 2, 372–388.Google Scholar
Deane, P. (1991). Limits to attention: A cognitive theory of island phenomena. Cognitive Linguistics, 2, 1–63.Google Scholar
Ellis, N. (1998). Emergentism, connectionism and language learning. Language Learning 48, 631–64.Google Scholar
Engdahl, E. (1983). Parasitic gaps. Linguistics and Philosophy, 6, 5–34.Google Scholar
Felix, S. (1985). Parasitic gaps in German. In Abraham, W. (ed.). Erklärende Syntax des Deutschen. Tübingen, 173–200.Google Scholar
Felix, S. (1988). UG-generated knowledge in adult second language acquisition. In Flynn, S. & O'Neil, W. (eds.) Linguistic theory in second language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 277–294.Google Scholar
Felser, C., & Roberts, L. (2007). Processing wh-dependencies in a second language: A cross-modal priming study. Second Language Research, 23, 9–36.Google Scholar
Felser, C., Cunnings, I., Batterham, C., & Clahsen, H. (2012). The timing of island effects in nonnative sentence processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 34, 67–98.Google Scholar
Freedman, S., & Forster, K. (1985). The psychological status of overgenerated sentences. Cognition, 24, 171–186.Google Scholar
Gibson, E., & Warren, T. (2004). Reading time evidence for intermediate linguistic structure in long-distance dependencies. Syntax, 7, 55–78.Google Scholar
Haegeman, L., Jimenez-Fernandez, A. L., & Radford, A. (2014). Deconstructing the Subject Condition in terms of cumulative constraint violation. The Linguistic Review, 31, 73–150.Google Scholar
Haider, H. (1993). Deutsche Syntax - generativ. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Hofmeister, P., & Sag, I. (2010). Cognitive constraints and island effects. Language, 86, 366–415.Google Scholar
Juffs, A., & Harrington, M. (1995). Parsing effects in second language sentence processing: Subject and object asymmetries in wh-extraction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 483–516.Google Scholar
Jurka, J., Nakao, C., & Omaki, A. (2011). It's not the end of the CED as we know it: Revisiting German and Japanese subject islands. Proceedings of the 28th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Kathol, A. (2001). On the nonexistence of true parasitic gaps in standard German. In Culicover, P. & Postal, P. (eds.). Parasitic gaps. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 315–338.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. (1983). Connectedness. Linguistic Inquiry, 14, 223–49.Google Scholar
Kluender, R. (1992). Deriving island constraints from principles of predication. In Goodluck, H. & Rochemont, M. (eds.). Island constraints: Theory, acquisition and processing. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 223–258.Google Scholar
Kluender, R. (2004). Are subject islands subject to a processing account? In Schmeiser, B., Chand, V., Kelleher, A., Rodriguez, A. (eds.). Proceedings of the 23rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 23). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, 101–125.Google Scholar
Kurtzman, H., & Crawford, L. (1991). Processing parasitic gaps. In Sherer, T. (ed.). Proceedings of the 21st annual meeting of the North Eastern Linguistics Society. Amherst, MA: LSA Publications, 217–231.Google Scholar
Marinis, T, Roberts, L., Felser, C., & Clahsen, H. (2005). Gaps in second language sentence processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 53–78.Google Scholar
Michel, D., & Goodall, G. (2013). Finiteness and the nature of island constraints. In Goto, N., Otaki, K., Sato, A. & Takita, K. (eds.). Proceedings of GLOW in Asia IX: The Main Session. Mie University, Japan, 187–197.Google Scholar
Norusis, M. (2011). IBM SPSS statistics 19 advanced statistical procedures companion. Pearson.Google Scholar
Omaki, A., & Schulz, B. (2011). Filler-gap dependencies and island constraints in second language sentence processing. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 563–588.Google Scholar
Parker, A. (1999). Parasitic gaps in the Germanic languages. Master's dissertation, National University of Ireland, Dublin.Google Scholar
Phillips, C. (2006). The real-time status of island phenomena. Language 82, 795–823.Google Scholar
Phillips, C. (2013). On the nature of island constraints. I: Language processing and reductionist accounts. In Sprouse, J. & Hornstein, N. (eds.). Experimental syntax and island effects. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (2013). Locality. Lingua, 130, 169–186.Google Scholar
Ross, J. (1967). Constraints on variables in syntax. PhD dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B., & Sprouse, R. (2000). When syntactic theories evolve: Consequences for L2 acquisition research. In Archibald, J. (ed.). Second language acquisition and linguistic theory. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 156–186.Google Scholar
Staub, A., & Rayner, K. (2007). Eye movements and online comprehension processes. In Gaskell, G. (ed.). The Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stowe, L. (1986). Parsing wh-constructions: Evidence for on-line gap location. Language and Cognitive Processes, 1, 227–245.Google Scholar
Sturt, P. (2007). Semantic reinterpretation and garden-path recovery. Cognition, 105, 477–88.Google Scholar
Szabolcsi, A. (2006). Strong vs. weak islands. In Everaert, M. & van Riemsdijk, H. (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. 4, pp. 479–531. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Traxler, M., & Pickering, M. (1996). Plausibility and the processing of unbounded dependencies: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 454–475.Google Scholar
Wagers, M., & Phillips, C. (2009). Multiple dependencies and the role of the grammar in real-time comprehension. Journal of Linguistics, 45, 395–433.Google Scholar
Williams, J., Möbius, P., & Kim, C. (2001). Native and non-native processing of English wh-questions: Parsing strategies and plausibility constraints. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22, 509–540.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Boxer and Felser supplementary material

Boxer and Felser supplementary material 1

Download Boxer and Felser supplementary material(File)
File 27.1 KB