Abstract
Previous works on English relative clauses (RCs) have tested subject and direct object RCs to find an asymmetrical pattern in L2 syntactic development. Studies on English native speakers and L2 learners of English have shown that both groups were better at subject RCs than any other types of RCs. However, these test items potentially involve compounding factors such as animacy effect and word order canonicity. To resolve this issue, the present study used an elicited production task to see how Korean-speaking adult learners of English perform two types of English oblique RCs. Forty Korean college students (18 high proficiency group; 22 low proficiency group) showed better performance at oblique RCs with a short filler-gap dependency (FGD) than oblique RCs with a long FGD. Both proficiency groups showed better accuracy rates when oblique RCs with a short FGD were elicited. In addition, patterns of non-targeted responses can explain how L2 learners differently process two oblique RCs with dissimilar distance between the filler and the gap. Overall, the test results demonstrated a clear linear distance effect between the filler and the gap in producing oblique RCs.
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