English Speakers’ Comprehension of Embedded Relative Clauses in L2 Japanese

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 841
Author(s):  
Shinichi Shoji
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Sentence Type ◽  
Type A ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Type B ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Accuracy Rates

This study investigated native English speakers’ comprehension of Japanese sentences in which relative clauses are embedded. Specifically, this study contrasted between (a) short-before-long sentences with center-embedded relative clauses and (b) long-before-short sentences with non-center-embedded relative clauses. Sentence-type (a) indicates a sentence that includes a short phrase before a long phrase and includes a relative clause that is embedded in the middle of the sentence, e.g., Onna-ga Ken-ga kiratteiru giin-o hometa ‘The woman praised the senator who Ken hated’. Sentence-type (b) indicates a sentence with a long phrase before a short phrase and includes a relative clause that is embedded peripherally, e.g., Ken-ga kiratteiru onna-ga giin-o hometa ‘The woman who Ken hated praised the senator’. Experiment 1 revealed that native English speakers, who are learners of Japanese, comprehended the type (b) sentences with long-before-short phrases and with non-center-embedded relative clauses more accurately than the type (a) sentences with short-before-long phrases with center-embedded relative clauses. The results indicate that the preference for the non-center-embedded clauses to center-embedded clauses is universal across languages, while the preference for short-before-long phrases is language-specific. However, Experiment 2 indicated that the different accuracy rates in comprehensions of (a) and (b) disappeared when the matrix subjects are marked by the topic-morpheme wa. The outcome indicated that the topic phrases are immediately interpreted as a part of main clauses.

Judgments of Grammatically by Normal and Language-Disordered Children

1977 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Betty Z. Liles ◽  
Martin D. Shulman ◽  
Susan Bartlett
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Sentence Type ◽  
Type A ◽  
Order Type ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Type B ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Grammatical Errors ◽  
Type C

Fifteen linguistically normal children and 15 linguistically deviant children were presented with three types of agrammatical sentences. The subjects were asked to judge the sentences as right or wrong and to change the sentences judged as wrong, rendering them correct. The three types of agrammatical sentences represented rule violations of syntactic agreement (Type A), lexical restrictions (Type B), and word order (Type C). The two groups of children were compared in terms of the number of sentences of each type that were recognized as agrammatical. Those productions which represented the child’s correction of agrammatical sentences were subjected to descriptive analyses (percentages) with specific reference to the number of attempted changes and the number of those changes which demonstrated corrections of the specific deviation from well formedness. Results indicated that the two groups of subjects were significantly different in their ability to recognize grammatical errors in sentence Types A and C, but did not differ in their ability to recognize errors in sentence Type B. The descriptive comparison of the groups' verbal corrections reflected this trend, in that the language-disordered subjects made corrections specific to the error on more of the Type B sentences (for example, “The dog writes the food.”) than on Types A (for example, “'She will pick some flowers last week.”) or C (for example, “Get and come your dinner.”). Linguistically normal children accurately corrected 90.7% of the sentences judged as agrammatical; this percentage did not vary more than 1% across sentence types.

scholarly journals Embedded Imperatives in Kajkavian Dialects of Croatian

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-400
Author(s):  
Josip Galić
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Minimalist Approach ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Embedded Clauses

Embedded imperatives are cross-linguistically very rare. They are attested, for instance, in modern languages such as Slovenian and High German and historical languages such as Ancient Greek and Old Scandinavian. In the literature, it has long been established that imperatives can also be embedded in some Kajkavian dialects of Croatian, but to date, this phenomenon has not been thoroughly analyzed. The paper deals with the material collected by field research and analyses it within the framework of Medeiros’ (2015) minimalist approach to embedded imperatives, according to which the embedding of imperatives is possible only in the languages in which imperative morphology does not depend on the directive operator. In the researched Kajkavian dialects, embedded imperatives can occur only in complement clauses, but older texts show that in the written language, embedded imperatives are also possible in relative clauses. Unlike many other languages in which imperatives may be embedded, in the researched Kajkavian dialects, embedding is relatively free. Both true and surrogate imperatives may be embedded, the subject of embedded clauses can be null and overt and does not necessarily have to co-refer to the internal argument of the matrix predicate.

Infinitival relative clauses in spoken discourse

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christer Geisler
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
British English ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
The Matrix

ABSTRACTThis article concerns infinitival relative clauses, such as Mary is the person to ask, and their distribution in spoken English. It analyzes the correlation between the function of the antecedent in the relative clause and the function of the whole postmodified NP (the relative complex) in the matrix clause. On the basis of a quantitative analysis of a corpus of spoken British English, I show that the grammatical function of the antecedent in the infinitival relative clause depends on the function of the antecedent in the matrix clause. I argue that the distribution of antecedent functions in the matrix clause can be explained in terms of thematic properties and information structure of the clauses in which the infinitival relatives occur. A key notion is that speakers center their discourse around information that they assume to be important for the communicative event.

scholarly journals An HPSG analysis of the non-integrated wh-relative clauses in German

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Holler
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Abstract Entity ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses

In this article, the so-called wh-relative clause construction is investigated. The German wh-relative clauses are syntactically relevant as they show both, root clause and subordinate clause properties. They matter semantically because they are introduced by a wh-anaphor that has to be resolved by an appropriate abstract entity of the matrix clause. Additionally, the wh-relative clause construction is discourse-functionally peculiar since it evokes coherence. Besides these interesting empirical characteristics, whrelatives raise important theoretical questions. It is argued that the standard HPSG theory has to be extended to account for non-restrictive relative clauses in general, and to cope with the particular properties of the wh-relative construction.

Free Choice-Free Relative Clauses of the Type “Indiferent + Wh-” in Romanian

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 209-222
Author(s):  
Mihaela Gheorghe
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Additive Particle

Free Choice-Free Relative Clauses of the Type “Indiferent + Wh-” in Romanian. The hypothesis of this paper is that the inventory of the free choice items in Romanian can be extended by including, along with the indefinites and the wh- compounds with ori-, a complex structure consisting of the adverb indiferent (‘regardless’) plus a wh-item. Based on syntactic tests, the paper suggests a line of interpretation according to which two patterns of relative clauses are possible with indiferent followed by a wh-item: (i) a headed relative clause licenced by a PP (de) which is syntactically required by the adverb indiferent, and (ii) a pattern in which the preposition de is covert, and the adverb functions as a quantifier that takes scope over the relative node; the clause is adjoined to the matrix together with the adverbial. We are dealing, therefore, with a free relative endowed with the free choice semantics of the adverb. In contexts of this type, the adverb indiferent seems to act like an additive particle to the wh-items, in a semantically similar way in which the prefix ori- contributes to the meaning of the complex free choice wh-words in Romanian. This hypothesis is also supported by the fact that the group formed by indiferent + wh-items is also occurrent in constructions with the ellipsis of the VP in the relative clause, a fact that strengthens the parallelism with the free choice items available in Romanian.

Against the Small Clause Hypothesis: Evidence from Swedish relative clause extractions

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Müller
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Small Clause ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Matrix Verb ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

On the basis of data from Swedish, this paper examines the Small Clause Hypothesis (Kush & Lindahl 2011, Kush, Omaki & Hornstein 2013) proposed to account for relative clause (RC) extractions in Mainland Scandinavian. The hypothesis predicts that extraction possibilities differ for relative clauses in the complement of verbs which select and verbs which do not select a small clause (SC), and that the possibility of RC extraction hinges on the ability of the matrix verb to select SCs involving the predicational operator som. I report results from an acceptability judgment experiment on RC extraction in Swedish manipulating three conditions: (a) SC-selecting verbs compatible with som, (b) SC-selecting verbs incompatible with som, and (c) verbs that are incompatible with SCs. The results show no significant difference between these conditions, thus offer no support in favor of the Small Clause Hypothesis. Additional problems are posed by the possibility of extraction from object RCs and by extraction possibilities in the absence of som.

scholarly journals The missing-VP effect in readers of English as a second language

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan L. Frank ◽  
Patty Ernst ◽  
Robin L. Thompson ◽  
Rein Cozijn
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Reading Difficulty ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
High Exposure ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
Embedded Clauses

AbstractEnglish sentences with double center-embedded clauses are read faster when they are made ungrammatical by removing one of the required verb phrases. This phenomenon is known as the missing-VP effect. German and Dutch speakers do not experience the missing-VP effect when reading their native language, but they do when reading English as a second language (L2). We investigate whether the missing-VP effect when reading L2 English occurs in native Dutch speakers because their knowledge of English is similar to that of native English speakers (the high exposure account), or because of the difficulty of L2 reading (the low proficiency account). In an eye-tracking study, we compare the size of the missing-VP effect between native Dutch and native English participants, and across native Dutch participants with varying L2 English proficiency and exposure. Results provide evidence for both accounts, suggesting that both native-like knowledge of English and L2 reading difficulty play a role.

A reading-time study of the main verb versus reduced relative clause ambiguity resolution by English learners in Taiwan

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1109-1133 ◽  
Author(s):  
PI-LAN YANG ◽  
SU-CHIN SHIH
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Reading Time ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Pragmatic Information ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Processing Mechanism

ABSTRACTUsing a self-paced reading task, the study aimed to investigate (a) whether English learners in Taiwan immediately resolve main verb versus reduced relative clause ambiguities in a similar way as native English speakers and (b) whether the learners at various English proficiency levels show diverse profiles. With analyses and syntheses of reading times for critical segments, results showed that different proficiency groups of Taiwanese English learners resolved such ambiguities in a way similar to native speakers to varying extents. The findings suggest that the sentence-processing mechanism of human language is subject to sufficient facility with syntactic access and/or with a network of lexical, semantic, and pragmatic information of individual speakers.

scholarly journals How the left-periphery of a wh-relative clause determines its syntactic and semantic relationships

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 243-260
Author(s):  
Anke Holler
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Semantic Relationships ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This paper discusses a certain class of German relative clauses which are characterized by a wh-expression overtly realized at the left periphery of the clause. While investigating empirical and theoretical issues regarding this class of relatives, it argues that a wh-relative clause relates syntactically to a functionally complete sentential projection and semantically to entities of various kinds that are abstracted from the matrix clause. What is shown is that this grammatical behaviour clearly can be attributed to the properties of the elements positioned at the left of a wh-relative clause. Finally, a lexically-based analysis couched in the framework of HPSG is given that accounts for the data presented.  

scholarly journals AN ANALYSIS OF THE COMPLEX SENTENCES USED IN SELECTED THAI POLITICAL NEWS IN ONLINE BANGKOK POST

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 16-28
Author(s):  
Janjira Kongsakorn ◽  
Prommintra Kongkaew
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Sentence Type ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Political News ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Nominal Clause

The present work aimed to analyze complex sentences and study the types of the complex sentences as used in the selected Thai political news stories from online Bangkok Post. Four Thai political news stories were selected for the study. They were the news stories published in April 2016. The news stories were analyzed based on the following types: Adverbial clauses, relative clauses and nominal clauses. The study found that the complex sentence type which was used with the highest frequency was a nominal clause. It accounted for 44 %. The type of the complex sentence; which was ranked second in use was an adverbial clause. It accounted for 29%. The type of the complex sentences which was least used was a relative clause. It represents 27 %.

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