A subject relative clause preference in a split-ergative language: ERP evidence from Georgian

Abstract

A fascinating descriptive property of human language processing whose explanation is still debated is that subject-gap relative clauses are easier to process than object-gap relative clauses, across a broad range of languages with different properties. However, recent work suggests that this generalization does not hold in Basque, an ergative language, and has motivated an alternative generalization in which the preference is for gaps in morphologically unmarked positions—subjects in nominative-accusative languages, and objects and intransitive subjects in ergative-absolutive languages. Here we examined whether this generalization extends to another ergative-absolutive language, Georgian. ERP and self-paced reading results show a large anterior negativity and slower reading times when a relative clause is disambiguated to an object relative vs a subject relative. These data thus suggest that in at least some ergative-absolutive languages, the classic descriptive generalization—that object relative clauses are more costly than subject relative clauses—still holds.