English Restrictive Relative Clauses Research Articles

Analysis of the Problems in the Use of English Restrictive Relative Clauses by Second Language Learners of Hazara Division

Analysis of the Problems in the Use of English Restrictive Relative Clauses by Second Language Learners of Hazara Division

Competing factors in SLA: how the CASP model of SLA explains the acquisition of English restrictive relative clauses by native speakers of Arabic and Korean

Abstract The Complex Adaptive Systems Principles (CASP) model of SLA claims that L1 transfer results when language processing effort is minimized. This claim was investigated by a self-paced on-line sentence judgment task in which L1 Arabic and Korean speakers and a control group of L1 English speakers read and judged English subject, direct object, and oblique relative clauses (RCs) in gapped and resumptive pronoun (RP) conditions. It was hypothesized that L1 influence would cause the Arabic speakers to accept English RCs with RPs more frequently than Korean speakers because RPs are acceptable in Arabic direct object and oblique RCs, whereas Korean bans RPs in these RC types. It was also hypothesized that the L2 English speakers would accept RPs more often than the L1 English speakers because RPs would ease L2 sentence processing. As predicted, L1 Arabic speakers accepted RPs more frequently than L1 Korean speakers, a transfer effect, and both L2 English groups accepted RPs more frequently than L1 English speakers, a processing effect. The results thus support the CASP model’s claim that L1 transfer is conditioned by language processing and other complex SLA processes that interact with one another.

The role of animacy and language proficiency in the comprehension of English restrictive relative clauses by Iranian EFL learners: an emergentist approach

Following an emergentist approach, the authors examined the comprehension of four different types of restrictive relative clauses (direct object/oblique vs. subject/indirect object) with animate/inanimate referents by Iranian EFL learners. To this end, an Oxford placement test and two sets of comprehension tests within a week’s interval were administered. Of the two comprehension tests, one was used to examine the comprehension of direct object/oblique RC’s with inanimate NP referents, and the other one investigated the understanding of subject/indirect object RC’s with animate referents. The results of the first comprehension test showed that there was no significant difference in the comprehension of direct/oblique RC’s with inanimate referents. But the result of the second comprehension test showed their better performance in the subject RC’s than indirect object RC’s with animate referents. The findings of the experiments showed that animacy influenced the processing difficulty of relative clauses which can be considered as a significant reasoning for these preferences or equalities. Current significant theories of relative clause processing can account for these results when additional assumptions are introduced showing that the possibility of semantically driven cues can be considered as a serious alternative.

Investigating the Acquisition Order of English Restrictive Relative Clauses: Evidence from Egyptian EFL Learners

Investigating the Acquisition Order of English Restrictive Relative Clauses: Evidence from Egyptian EFL Learners

Structural and Sociolinguistic Factors Conditioning the Choice of Relativizers in Late Modern English: A Diachronic Study Based on the Old Bailey Corpus

The present study aims at broadening our understanding of the development of relativizer choice (pronouns, that and zero) in Late Modern English restrictive relative clauses. It investigates the effect of the linguistic factor groups ANIMACY OF THE HEAD and ROLE OF THE RELATIVIZER IN THE RELATIVE CLAUSE and combines these with the social factors GENDER and SOCIAL CLASS . The data used in this study come from the Old Bailey Corpus (Huber et al. 2012). As a corpus of trial proceedings, it affords a glimpse into spoken Late Modern English. Because of its size, the time-span covered and the detail of sociolinguistic utterance-level annotation, the Old Bailey Corpus is an ideal database for a fine-tuned, quantitative- variationist study of relativizers in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is commonly assumed that at the beginning of Late Modern English the relativizers that and zero were felt to be rather colloquial, particularly as far as the written mode was concerned. However, even in the very formal setting of trials as represented by the Old Bailey Corpus , that and zero account for as much as 76.1% of all relativizers in the 1720–1789 period. The frequency of that declined considerably during the two centuries investigated here (from 52.7% down to 27.8%) and it developed into a relativizer that predominantly marked non-human antecedents. Zero, on the other hand, increased in frequency (from 24.2% to 38.3%, thus becoming the most common relativizer) but remained a marker that mainly followed non-human heads. During the 18th and 19th centuries, human antecedents became increasingly marked by who , but there was little change with regard to which , marking about one-fifth of non-human heads in all subperiods. As to sociolinguistic factors, the use of the relative pronouns was promoted by male speakers, while female speakers led in the adoption of the zero relativizer.

On the Nature of Wh-word in English Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses

646. This paper raises a question on exactly what the nature of Wh-word in English Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses (NRRCs) is, as opposed to that in Restrictive Relative Clauses (RRCs). Other than being equipped with a Wh-element in common, there exist overwhelming asymmetries between English RRCs and NRRCs. Based on the generalizations and disparities between RRCs and NRRCs brought forward in the literature (Quirk, et. al. 1972, 1985, Borsley 1992, Kayne 1994, Borsley 1997, McCawley, 1998, Lobeck, 2000, De Vries 2002, 2006, Aoun & Li 2003, Authier & Reed 2005, Arnold & Borsley 2008) this paper examines the nature of Wh-word in English NRRCs, which has long been neglected in the generative syntax field. We argue that the Wh-word heading NRRCs is not a Wh-Operator since it shows no signature properties of (linguistic) operators; no WCO effect, no Reconstruction effect, no quantificational properties (Aoun & Li 2003, Authier & Reed 2005), whereas the Wh-word in RRC is. The formal features of the Wh-phrase in NRRC are lacking (Law 2000), so that it is argued here to be a deficient Wh-exp, or Wh-expletive with the minimal features. All in all, we argue that the Wh-word heading NRRC is not Wh-operator and the construction is a relative in disguise.

Study on Chinese College EFL Learners' Comprehension and Production of English Relative Clauses: Testing Three Hypotheses

AbstractThis study considers both comprehension and production of the English restrictive relative clauses (RC) by EFL learners in Chinese context. Different tests were employed respectively in data collection, namely a sentence combination test and a grammaticality judgment test, aiming to test the hypotheses about the acquisition of English relative clauses. The participants were 30 first-year College students randomly selected in a university of Shanxi province. The results showed that Chinese EFL learners do not follow the Orders of RC acquisition predicted by any of the three hypotheses, Parallel Function Hypothesis (PFH), Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis (PDH), and Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAHH). They also showed that the participants performed better in the sentence combination test than in the grammaticality judgment test, and in both tests the easiest type of RC is O-DO, and the most difficult ones are O-OPREP and S-IO.

The Acquisition of English Restrictive Relative Clauses by Arab Adult EFL Learners

This study investigates the challenges faced by Arab adult learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in acquiring English restrictive relative clauses (RRCs), as well as the factors that affect the process of acquisition. This issue has received considerable attention in second language (L2) research. The present study discusses the syntactic structure of RRCs in English and Arabic with regard to the use of resumptive pronouns and the use of overt versus covert relative markers as related to the definiteness of the head noun. This study is carried out using an acceptability judgment test as the tool for data collection. A sample of 100 male and female adult Arabic speakers is used with the aim of identifying potential acquisition problems. The results obtained provide further support for first language (L1) transfer. This study concludes that participants accepted the use of resumptive pronouns and preferred the overt relative markers determined by definiteness. It is further discovered that certain factors influenced the acquisition process such as participants’ age, age of learning, and age of immersion. The current study has some pedagogical implications for the teaching of relative clauses in the EFL context. Keywords: English Relative Clauses, Restrictive Relative Clauses, Relative pronoun, Arab Learners of English

Second Language Acquisition of Complex Structures: The Case of English Restrictive Relative Clauses

This paper examines the formation of Restrictive Relative Clauses (RRC) in Greek and English and investigates the acquisition of English RRCs by advanced Greek learners. On the assumption that L1 Greek and L2 English exhibit parametrically different choices as regards RRC formation which are associated with abstract syntactic features, the current experiment addresses the question of whether parameter resetting is possible in adult L2 acquisition. The results have shown that non-native speakers (NNSs) fared significantly less successfully than native speakers (NSs) in the relevant grammaticality judgement task. The conclusion is that advanced Greek learners fail to acquire the feature specification of the English relative C. The obtained data lends additional support to recent L2 theories which maintain that syntactic divergence between L1 and L2 is associated with prolonged acquisitional problems.

THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES BY HUNGARIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH, Judit Kiss-Gulyás

THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES BY HUNGARIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH.Judit Kiss-Gulyás. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2004. Pp. 169. $26.00 paper.This volume presents a study on the acquisition of English restrictive relative clauses (RRCs) by Hungarian speakers through an investigation of two universal principles—subjacency and the empty category principle (ECP)—and consideration of how the different instantiation of these two principles and the different parametric settings of the languages play a role in the interlanguage development of first language (L1) Hungarian learners of English as a second language (L2). Assuming the generative theory of Universal Grammar (UG), the objective of the study is to investigate whether Hungarian learners of English provide particular evidence for the partial availability of UG in their interlanguage grammar—also known as the partial access view of UG—or provide evidence for other views, such as the no access or the full access view, considering both the weak and strong versions.

Restrictive relative clauses in English and Korean learners' second language Chinese

This study investigates the second language (L2) acquisition of restrictive relative clauses (RRCs) in Chinese by two groups of learners speaking typologically different first languages (L1s): English and Korean. English RRCs, unlike those of Chinese, are head-initial whereas Korean RRCs, like those of Chinese, are head-final. The difference could be predicted to hinder English learners' acquisition of L2 RRCs but facilitate it for Korean learners. This prediction was not confirmed in this study, in fact the reverse was observed, and our data show contrasting patterns of acquisition between the two groups of learners. The English learners distinguished between target-like RRCs and non-target-like RRCs earlier than the Korean learners. A corresponding difference was observed for acquisition of resumptive pronouns. It is argued that where the L1 and the L2 share salient properties (such as head direction) restructuring of less salient features encoded in functional categories takes longer and may be persistently problematic. We suggest that the fact that Korean is more similar to Chinese (perhaps superficially, same head direction) leads learners not to restructure quickly, while the surface dissimilarity of English and Chinese gives rise to rapid restructuring in L2 grammars of learners.

Sorting out Relative Clauses

This paper investigates the structure of English restrictive relative clauses. It provides support for the view that restrictive relative clauses are structurally ambiguous between two structures: the head-internal, raising structure and the matching structure, which has both an internal and an external head. We present a new test from extraposition facts that distinguishes between the raising and matching structures for relative clauses. Furthermore, this paper presents an account of the semantics of raising relative clauses which is intended to complete the picture of the semantics of relative clauses. In particular, we argue that raising relative clauses are not islands for Quantifier Raising (QR) and that in these clauses there is successive cyclic movement through a CP-adjoined position.

The Effects of Instruction on Acquiring Pronominal Copies’ Status

This study examines the effect of two types of formal instruction on acquiring pronominal copies' status in English restrictive relative clauses by native speakers of Arabic using English for academic purposes. Grammatical judgment and sentence combination elicitation measures were used followed by some pedagogical implications and further research suggestions..

The syntax and semantics of english relative clauses

An analysis of English restrictive relative clauses is developed that accounts for many of the differences between them and three other clause types having the same internal structure, namely nonrestrictive relative clauses, cleft clauses, and ‘pseudo-relative’ clauses as in There are many Americans who like baseball. Section 1 is devoted to establishing the surface constituent structures of sentences involving the various relative and relative-like clauses. In sections 1 and 2 I provide evidence that pseudo-relative clauses are not restrictive relative clauses (nor are they nonrestrictive clauses) and indicate which apparent relative clauses must be classed as pseudo-relative. Section 3 is concerned with the derivation of nonrestrictive clauses. Sections 4 and 5 deal with two different analyses of restrictive relatives, each of which is supported by a sizeable body of data and appears to be irreconcileable with the data that support the other analysis. In section 6 an attempt is made to achieve a synthesis of the two analyses on the basis of a ‘core’ of grammatical rules proper and a set of ‘patches’ that serve to extend the speaker's competence to cover cases for which the core rules do not yield admissible derivations. The analyses developed make extensive use of the conception of syntactic category that is developed in McCawley 1977a, 1980b.