The processing and comprehension of wh-questions among second language speakers of German

Using the self-paced reading paradigm, the present study examines whether highly proficient second language (L2) speakers of German (English first language) use case-marking information during the on-line comprehension of unambiguous wh-extractions, even when task demands do not draw explicit attention to this morphosyntactic feature in German. Results support previous findings, in that both the native and the L2 German speakers exhibited an immediate subject preference in the matrix clause, suggesting they were sensitive to case-marking information. However, only among the native speakers did this subject preference carry over to reading times in the complement clause. The results from the present study are discussed in light of current debates regarding the ability of L2 speakers to attain nativelike processing strategies in their L2. An increasing body of research addresses the question of how second language (L2) speakers process L2 input and the extent to which their processing strategies parallel the strategies employed by native speakers (for two recent reviews, see Frenck-Mestre, 2005; Papadapoulou, 2005). Although there is growing consensus that L2 speakers can use lexical–semantic and pragmatic information during online processing (e.g., Felser, Roberts, Marinis, & Gross, 2003; Frenck-Mestre & Pynte, 1997; Williams, Möbius, & Kim, 2001), the extent to which L2 speakers take advantage of L2 morphosyntactic properties to build the syntactic structure of a sentence incrementally when comprehending L2 input remains controversial (e.g., Clahsen & Felser, 2006; Dekydtspotter, Schwartz, & Sprouse, 2006). One possible reason for conflicting results with regard to the processing of morphosyntactic information, in particular, may be because of differences in task-specific demands across studies. For example, L2 speakers may employ different strategies when asked to make an explicit grammaticality judgment after reading a sentence © 2009 Cambridge University Press 0142-7164/09 $15.00 Applied Psycholinguistics 30:4 604 Jackson & Bobb: German wh-questions compared to when they are prompted to answer a yes/no comprehension question. This is an important factor to consider, as it relates to fundamental questions regarding L2 speakers’ knowledge of the target language grammar and how such information is organized and retrieved during language comprehension (cf. Jiang, 2004, 2007). The present study addresses the possibility of task-induced effects by exploring how German native speakers and L2 German speakers (English first language [L1]) process subject versus object wh-questions in German during a self-paced reading comprehension task. This study builds on a previous study reported by Jackson and Dussias (2009), in which native and L2 German speakers read similar sentences using the self-paced reading paradigm in conjunction with a grammaticality judgment task. With regard to wh-questions, German differs from English in that the grammatical role of a wh-element in German is often unambiguously marked via case-marking information, whereas such roles are discerned by word order in English.1 However, previous research has shown that processing case-marking information may be difficult for L2 German speakers, and only highly proficient L2 speakers tend to exhibit an on-line reading time preference for subject-first sentences, similar to German native speakers, when the discernment of word order relies on processing case-marking information in the input (e.g., Hopp, 2006). Thus, examining how L2 German speakers process this morphosyntactic feature of German and whether they use this information even when the task does not explicitly encourage them to do so, will further our understanding of how L2 speakers process grammatical information in their L2 during real-time language comprehension. This paper is organized as follows. First, we will discuss previous findings from the L2 sentence processing literature regarding the processing of wh-questions in English, as well as recent studies examining how explicit task demands interact with L2 processing strategies. Then we will review several studies that have examined the processing of case-marking information and wh-questions by native and L2 German speakers. Following this we will present the methodological details of the present study, as well as our results. Finally, we will discuss the implications these results have for current models of how L2 speakers process and comprehend sentences in their nonnative language. L2 PROCESSING OF wh-QUESTIONS Several studies have shown that, similar to native speakers, L2 speakers will assign thematic roles to an ambiguous wh-element as soon as possible when processing wh-extractions, like Examples 1 and 2 below (Dussias & Pinar, in press; Juffs, 2005; Juffs & Harrington, 1995). Using the self-paced reading paradigm, these studies have found that both native and L2 English speakers have greater difficulty processing subject extractions compared to object extractions upon reaching the complement clause (e.g., saw the patient), as evidenced by longer reading times on the complement clause in subject extractions compared to object extractions and lower accuracy on an accompanying grammaticality judgment task. Applied Psycholinguistics 30:4 605 Jackson & Bobb: German wh-questions 1. Who does the nurse know ___ saw the patient? (subject extraction) 2. Who does the nurse know the patient saw ___? (object extraction) Although several explanations have been posited regarding the exact nature of this reanalysis process (e.g., Pritchett, 1992, as outlined by Juffs & Harrington, 1995; for arguments regarding the various explanatory models for this phenomenon, see also Carlson & Tanenhaus, 1988; De Vincenzi, 2000; Fodor, 1993; Frazier, 1987; Gibson, Hickock, & Schütze, 1994), one common thread in many explanations is that native and L2 English speakers attempt to integrate the wh-element as quickly as possible into the target sentence. When reading the matrix clause, participants thus temporarily assign the thematic role of direct object to the initial wh-element, as it becomes clear at the auxiliary verb do that who cannot be the subject of the matrix clause. In subject extractions, such an assignment becomes untenable at the first word in the complement clause, leading to greater processing difficulties in the complement clause on subject extractions relative to object extractions. Observing, however, that neither native nor L2 English speakers had difficulties on subject extractions out of nonfinite clauses, like Who does the boss expect the customers to meet next Monday?, Juffs (2005) proposed an alternative explanation for this difficulty with subject extractions in English. Specifically, he hypothesized that the processing difficulty on subject extractions out of finite clauses, like Example 1, stemmed not from the thematic role of the wh-element per se, but rather the adjacency of two tensed verbs between the matrix and complement clause, compared to object extractions out of finite clauses and wh-extractions in general out of nonfinite clauses. Recently, Dussias and Pinar (in press) also showed that among English native speakers and L2 English speakers with higher L2 working memory skills, reanalysis was more difficult when the initial wh-element, who, was a plausible direct object of the matrix verb, as in Example 3, compared to when it was not a plausible direct object, as in Example 4 (for additional evidence that plausibility constraints can influence syntactic reanalysis, see also Frazier, Carminati, Cook, Majewski, & Rayner, 2006; Pickering & Traxler, 1998). 3. Who did the police know ___ killed the pedestrian? (subject extraction; plausible) 4. Who did the police declare ___ killed the pedestrian? (subject extraction;