Relative clauses (RC) are among the most well-studied constructions in the field of psycholinguistics. A wide variety of work explores a robust processing asymmetry such that subject relatives (SRs) are easier to process than object relatives (ORs). For example, English shows a subject advantage, as demonstrated by a number of studies involving different measures including: self-paced reading (...

Abstract Using both offline and online measures, the present study investigates attachment resolution in relative clauses English natives (L1) nonnatives (L2). We test how clause interacts with linguistic factors participant-level individual differences. Previous L1 studies have demonstrated a low preference also an “ambiguity advantage” suggesting that L1ers may not as strong is sometimes clai...

This paper discusses a special kind of syntax-semantics mismatch: a noun with a relative clause is interpreted as if it were a complement clause. An analysis in terms of Lexical Resource Semantics is developed which provides a uniform account for “normal” relative clauses and for the discussed type of relative clause.

Two eye-tracking experiments were conducted using written Chinese sentences that contained a multi-word ambiguous region. The goal was to determine whether readers maintained multiple interpretations throughout the ambiguous region or selected a single interpretation at the point of ambiguity. Within the ambiguous region, we manipulated the strength of support for the complement clause (CC) ana...

A headed relative clause is a syntactically complex modifier involving abstraction over an internal position of the clause (the relativization site) and connected to some constituent it modifies (the relative ''head''). In the standard approach, abstraction is syntactically implemented by means of an unbounded dependency between the relativization site and a relative operator taking scope over ...

English sentences such as I consider John smart have long presented analytic ambiguity between a “small clause” analysis and a “predication” analysis, and the apparently equivalent sentence-type in Greek, e.g. presents similar problems. Here it is argued that additional evidence from each language, involving constructions that are sensitive to the thematicity of an object NP, shows that these s...