Relative Clause Effects at the Matrix Verb Depend on Type of Intervening Material

Although a large literature demonstrates that object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) are harder to process than subject-extracted (SRCs), there is less agreement regarding where during processing this difficulty emerges, as well how best explain these effects. An eye-tracking study by Staub, Dillon, and Clifton (2017) demonstrated readers experience more at the matrix verb for ORCs SRCs when immediately follows clause (RC), but eliminated if prepositional phrase (PP) intervenes. A careful examination of Staub et al.’s materials reveals types PPs used in experiment were mixture locative temporal PPs. This important can modify either noun or (VP), whereas typically VPs, resulting systematic differences PP attachment across versus SRCs. In current experiment, we systematically manipulated RC type same sentences al. The manipulation resulted crossover pattern such was trend reading times be longer locative, temporal. These results provide information locus RC-processing effects highlight importance carefully considering intervening material might unintentionally alter structure meaning sentence.