Prosodic Cues in Relative Clauses Disambiguation: Bilinguals vs. L2 Learners

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Abstract This study investigates the preferences for attachment of a relative clause (RC) to a complex noun phrase (NP) of the type: NP1 of NP2, in Spanish-English bilinguals and advanced learners of Spanish. Spanish speakers show a moderate preference for attaching the RC to the first NP, while speakers of English prefer the second NP. Subjects were presented this construction in written (Experiment 1) and oral (Experiment 2) forms. Results show no group had a preference for either attachment in silent reading, Low Attachment was preferred with a pause after NP1 by learners, and High Attachment was preferred in the absence of any pause by bilinguals and learners. However, the learner group behaved distinctively in Experiment 2 in two ways: their reaction times were shorter, and their choice for the kind of RC attachment was more sensitive to the absence of a pause being more likely to choose Low Attachment, as English monolinguals. These results suggest that advanced learners are influenced by their L1 more heavily in oral comprehension than in reading, while bilinguals take longer for processing prosodic cues. Reasons for a slower bilingual processing are posited. Lastly, implications for prosody teaching are drawn from these results.