Although both sentences in (1) and (2) contain a displaced element (e.g. the cat), the two structures differ as to the position of the gap inside the relative clause. In subject relative clauses such as (1), the position which the filler moves from is the syntactic subject of the relative clause (e.g. ‘the cat chases the mouse’). By contrast, in object relative clauses like (2), the filler is m...

Sentence-initial temporal clauses headed by before, as in "Before the scientist submitted the paper, the journal changed its policy", have been shown to elicit sustained negative-going brain potentials compared to maximally similar clauses headed by after, as in "After the scientist submitted the paper, the journal changed its policy". Such effects may be due to either one of two potential caus...

Our investigation focuses on several types of structural ambiguity in European Portuguese. The materials include sentences with set-divider adverbs ambiguous as to the direction of syntactic attachment, adjunct and complement PPs ambiguous as to the level of syntactic embedding, nonrestrictive clauses with local and non-local possible antecedents, and relative clauses ambiguous as to their rest...