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THE TIMING OF ISLAND EFFECTS IN NONNATIVE SENTENCE PROCESSING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2012

Claudia Felser ,
Ian Cunnings ,
Claire Batterham  and
Harald Clahsen
Claudia Felser*
Affiliation:
University of Essex
Ian Cunnings
Affiliation:
University of Essex
Claire Batterham
Affiliation:
University of Essex
Harald Clahsen
Affiliation:
University of Essex
*
*Address correspondence to Claudia Felser, Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; e-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

Using the eye-movement monitoring technique in two reading comprehension experiments, this study investigated the timing of constraints on wh-dependencies (so-called island constraints) in first- and second-language (L1 and L2) sentence processing. The results show that both L1 and L2 speakers of English are sensitive to extraction islands during processing, suggesting that memory storage limitations affect L1 and L2 comprehenders in essentially the same way. Furthermore, these results show that the timing of island effects in L1 compared to L2 sentence comprehension is affected differently by the type of cue (semantic fit versus filled gaps) signaling whether dependency formation is possible at a potential gap site. Even though L1 English speakers showed immediate sensitivity to filled gaps but not to lack of semantic fit, proficient German-speaking learners of English as a L2 showed the opposite sensitivity pattern. This indicates that initial wh-dependency formation in L2 processing is based on semantic feature matching rather than being structurally mediated as in L1 comprehension.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 67 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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