Head Noun Phrase Research Articles

The ordering of relative clauses and determiner phrases in Chinese interlanguage: a multifactorial study

In English, a relative clause (rc) follows the head noun phrase (np). Conversely, the rc in Chinese precedes the head np directly before it or is separated by a determiner phrase (dp). This is uncommon in the subject-verb-object order language and results in two types of constructions. For Chinese as foreign language (cfl) learners, this construction alternation is complex to acquire and is dependent on many factors. This study aims to explore the underlying factors influencing cfl learners’ outer modifier nominal (omn)/inner modifier nominal (imn) alternation and whether they have multiple interactions. A multifactorial exploration of the significant predictors of the omn/imn alternation in Chinese interlanguage data, taken from the International Chinese Interlanguage Corpus, was conducted. Conditional inference trees and random forests were used to analyse the data. The predictors studied consist of head np animacy (HeadNPAnimacy), head np length (HeadNPLength), grammatical roles of head nps in matrix clauses (HeadNPMatRole), grammatical roles of head nps in rcs (HeadNPRelRole), length of rcs (RCLength), types of native languages (NLType), and learners’ Chinese proficiency (CHProficiency). Examinations of omn/imn alternation show predictors’ significant effects in descending order of their effect size: HeadNPRelRole, HeadNPMatRole, RCLength, NLType, and HeadNPAnimacy.

Embedded NP error in German object relative clause comprehension: A case for a universal developmental pathway.

We report the results of an eye-tracking study investigating German children's comprehension of subject relative clauses (SRC) and object relative clauses (ORC) with morphologically unambiguous head and embedded noun phrases (NPs). The experimental paradigm was adopted from Adani and Fritzsche. Children's eye movements were tracked on the visual display while they were listening to an SRC or an ORC. Subsequently, they had to choose the most appropriate visual character on the screen to go with a particular relative clause type in a character selection paradigm. All the head NP and the embedded NPs were of masculine gender. Thus, the relative clause syntax was disambiguated by the ending on the relative pronoun and, subsequently, on the determiner in the embedded NP. We computed fixation probabilities towards the syntactic competitor and the embedded NP character in addition to the proportions of looks towards the target character on the screen. Thematic reversal error remained the dominant error type on children's response accuracy data. The subject advantage was also confirmed on the eye-tracking data, though it was overridden in the post-relative clause time window. However, there was a significant increase in fixation probabilities towards the embedded NP character in the ORC, but not in the SRC condition. While children were less efficient to use the morphological information on the relative pronoun to generate an expectation of a non-canonical ORC structure, they obviously used embedded NP morphology later in the sentence to update their ongoing structural analysis.

Anaphor reconstruction in Japanese relative clauses

AbstractThis study conducted two experiments to examine the derivation of the head noun phrase in Japanese relative clauses, with a focus on whether the anaphorsjibun‘self’ andjibun-jishin‘self-self’ within the head noun phrase can be co-referential with the relative clause subject. It aims to settle a long-standing debate among the previous studies concerning the interpretation of the anaphors inside the head noun phrase: while several studies claimed that the co-reference between the anaphorjibun‘self’ and the relative clause subject is prohibited, many other studies argued that such co-reference is possible. In addition, it has been claimed that while co-indexing the anaphorjibunwith the relative clause subject might be marginally acceptable, it would become fully acceptable if we replacejibunwith the morphologically complex anaphorjibun-jishin‘self-self’, which implies that the morphological make-up of an anaphor may affect its ability to be co-indexed with the relative clause subject.The results of two carefully controlled truth value judgment experiments show that neither the simplex anaphorjibunnor the complex anaphorjibun-jishinwithin the head noun phrase of relative clauses can take the relative clause subject as its antecedent, which suggests that the head noun phrase does not reconstruct and therefore lends support to thepro-binding analysis of Japanese relative clauses. Moreover, the findings also suggest that the morphological make-up of an anaphor does not affect its ability to take the relative clause subject as its antecedent, despite the claim that it is more acceptable to co-index the complex anaphorjibun-jishinwith the relative clause subject than the simplex anaphorjibun.

Acquisition of Japanese relative clauses by L1 Chinese learners: Evidence from reflexive pronoun resolution

This article investigates whether first-language (L1) Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese as a second language (L2) can acquire the knowledge that the reflexive pronoun jibun ‘self’ within the head noun phrase of Japanese relative clauses cannot refer to the relative clause subject. Successful acquisition would suggest that learners are able to acquire the underlying syntactic knowledge that the head noun phrase of Japanese relative clauses is base-generated external to the relative clause. A truth value judgment experiment was conducted and the findings suggest that L1 Chinese learners can indeed acquire the target syntactic knowledge in Japanese relative clauses, which argues against the Representational Deficit hypotheses and supports the Full Functional Representation hypotheses of L2 acquisition.

Internally-Headed Relative Clauses in Hakha Chin

Hakha Chin, an underdocumented Tibeto-Burman language, is reported to have internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs), a typologically rare syntactic structure in which the head noun phrase surfaces within the relative clause itself. The current study provides new data and novel observations which bear on several outstanding questions about IHRCs in this language: 1) Relativization of locative and instrumental adjuncts in IHRCs is avoided. 2) Conflicting stem allomorph requirements of negation and relativization of non-subjects give rise to optionality in stem choice when the two are brought together in an IHRC. 3) To relativize an indirect object, an IHRC is either avoided altogether, or the noun phrase is fronted to the absolute left-most position in the embedded clause. 4) Relativization of NPs with a human referent in an IHRC exhibit relativizer gender agreement, which has not been previously reported for this clause type in Hakha Chin.

Contrastive Analysis: Gorontalonese and English Noun Phrase

The main objective of this study is to gain an understanding of the different and similar features of Noun Phrase in the vernacular language of Indonesia; Gorontalonese, with English. Gorontalonese is one of Indonesia's vernaculars that is rarely investigated, including the structure of Noun Phrases. Comparative study of Gorontalonese and English is also very rare. This study presents the similarities and the differences of Noun Phrase structures of Gorontalonese and English. To achieve this purpose, the structure of the Noun Phrases in both of the languages have been provided. They were taken from newspapers, relevant text-books, online journals and other data sources. The theories about Gorontalonese are very limited, because there was only handful of researchers. The findings of this study will be helpful for further researchers to develop their arguments when conducting their study in the same field. This study has supported the theory, in which the order and structure of Noun Phrases in both languages are distinct, while Gorontalonese is considered as a head-last language and English is a head-initial language. In Gorontalonese, the head of the Noun Phrase is always placed at beginning of the phrase followed by the other supporting elements, which helps in the description of the head noun. On the other hand, the Noun Phrase in English follows the supporting elements, which is placed in the beginning of the Noun Phrase, which helps in the description of the head Noun Phrase.

Misinterpretations in agreement and agreement attraction.

It has been well established that subject-verb number agreement can be disrupted by local noun phrases that differ in number from the subject head noun phrase. In sentence production, mismatches in the grammatical number of the head and local noun phrases lead to agreement errors on the verb as in: the key to the cabinets are. Similarly, although ungrammaticality typically causes disruption in measures of sentence comprehension, the disruption is reduced when the local noun phrase has a plural feature. Using a forced-choice comprehension question method, we report two experiments that provide evidence that comprehenders were likely to misinterpret the number information on the head noun phrase when morphosyntactic number markings on the local noun phrase and verb did not match the head. These results are consistent with a growing body of research that suggests that comprehenders often arrive at a final interpretation of a sentence that is not faithful to the linguistic input.

Investigating the Processing of Relative Clauses in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from Eye-Movement Data.

A number of previous studies on Chinese relative clauses (RC) have reported conflicting results on processing asymmetry. This study aims to revisit the prevalent debate on whether subject-extracted RCs (SRC) or object-extracted RCs (ORC) are easier to process by using the eye-movement technique. In the current study, the data are analyzed in terms of the gaze duration and regression of eye-movement in three critical areas: head noun, embedded verb, and RC-modifying noun phrase as subject. The results show an ORC preference for the processing of RC structures, which supports the word-order account and the Dependency Locality Theory, and a better cross-clausal integration for SRC, which supports the perspective-shift account. The processing asymmetry in Chinese RCs are discussed under relevant theoretical accounts, such as structure-based, memory-based, and perspective shift accounts. We argue that the findings are associated with the syntactic nature of Chinese (a head-initial language with pre-nominal RCs).

The Relevance of the principle of Relevance for Word Order Variation in Complex Referring Expressions in Mandarin Chinese

AbstractWord order variation in Mandarin Chinese results in two constructions consisting of a noun phrase (NP), a cluster of a demonstrative and a classifier (DM), and a relative clause (RC): the OMN with the RC+DM+NP order and the IMN with DM+RC+NP order. This study used corpus data to show correlational patterns of constructional choices. Specifically, OMN is associated with new and inanimate NPs serving the grammatical role of object in the relative clause that serves the discourse function of identification. By contrast, for IMN, the head NP tends to carry given information, tends to be an animate entity, tends to serve the grammatical role of subject in the relative clause, and tends to have an RC that serves the discourse function of characterization. We suggest that the usage patterns can be interpreted in terms of the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance (Sperber and Wilson 1995).

Effects of animacy and noun-phrase relatedness on the processing of complex sentences

Previous work has suggested that syntactically complex object-extracted relative clauses are easier to process when the head noun phrase (NP1) is inanimate and the embedded noun phrase (NP2) is animate, as compared with the reverse animacy configuration, with differences in processing difficulty beginning as early as NP2 (e.g., The article that the senator . . . vs. The senator that the article . . .). Two eye-tracking-while-reading experiments were conducted to better understand the source of this effect. Experiment 1 showed that having an inanimate NP1 facilitated processing even when NP2 was held constant. Experiment 2 manipulated both animacy of NP1 and the degree of semantic relatedness between the critical NPs. When NP1 and NP2 were paired arbitrarily, the early animacy effect emerged at NP2. When NP1 and NP2 were semantically related, this effect disappeared, with effects of NP1 animacy emerging in later processing stages for both the related and arbitrary conditions. The results indicate that differences in the animacy of NP1 influence early processing of complex sentences only when the critical NPs share no meaningful relationship.

Information status and English relative constructions: A corpus-based study of Japanese learners in spoken language

AbstractThis study investigates Japanese learners’ production of English relative constructions, focusing on the information preference of noun phrases in spoken discourse. The constructions of Japanese learners and of native speakers of English were extracted from a spoken corpus according to learners’ English proficiency levels. The information status (New, Given, and Identifiable) of head noun phrases modified by relative clauses were also examined. The results found that, in an attempt to keep spoken communication coherent, native speakers and learners of all levels prefer general grammatical and pragmatic configurations in their production of English relative constructions. This preference is called the Preferred Argument Structure (Du Bois 1987). However, Japanese learners and native speakers did not share the same preference of language-specific information status. The results suggest that first language information preference plays a crucial role in second language acquisition, especially during the early stages of acquisition. They also suggest that discoursal properties affect the mechanisms and motivations of relative clause constructions in second language acquisition.

A corpus-linguistic study of multiple relative clauses in Chinese

Abstract This study investigates the ordering restriction of two relative clauses modifying the same head noun phrase in Chinese. We use both retrospective and corpus data to challenge Larson and Takahashi's (2007) account of the ordering of such multiple relative clauses in Chinese in terms of the distinction of individual-level and stage-level relative clauses. Instead, we offer an account based on the discourse function of the multiple relative clauses in Chinese. Specifically, we argue that relative clauses that serve to provide grounding information for the head noun tend to precede other types of relative clauses. The proposed ordering restriction is shown to account for the ordering of multiple relative clauses in both Chinese and English.

The role of animacy in Chinese relative clause processing

Two experiments investigated Chinese relative clause processing by manipulating the animacy of the head noun phrases in the matrix clause (hereafter called head NPs) and in the embedded clause (hereafter called relative-clause-internal NPs) in a self-paced reading paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that subject-modifying object relative clauses (S-ORCs) were easier to process than subject-modifying subject relative clauses (S-SRCs) under animate–inanimate configuration (animate relative-clause-internal NPs and inanimate head NPs), but S-SRCs were easier to process than S-ORCs under inanimate–animate configuration (inanimate relative-clause-internal NPs and animate head NPs). Experiment 2 showed that object-modifying object relative clauses (O-ORCs) were easier to process than object-modifying subject relative clauses (O-SRCs) under both animacy configurations. These results suggest that animacy configuration of the relative-clause-internal NPs and the head NPs plays an important role in Chinese relative clause processing. These results can be explained by thematic fit accounts.

The pistol that injured the cowboy: Difficulty with inanimate subject–verb integration is reduced by structural separation

Previous work has suggested that the difficulty normally associated with processing an object-extracted relative clause (ORC) compared to a subject-extracted relative clause (SRC) is increased when the head noun phrase (NP1) is animate and the embedded noun phrase (NP2) is inanimate, compared to the reverse animacy configuration. Two eye-tracking experiments were conducted to determine whether the apparent effects of NP animacy on the ORC–SRC asymmetry reflect distinct processes of interpretation that operate at NP2 and NP1. Experiment 1 revealed a localized difficulty interpreting the embedded action verb when the preceding NP2 was inanimate as compared to animate, but this difficulty in subject–verb integration did not extend to the broader region of words in the RC and matrix verb where difficulty was observed in processing ORCs as compared to SRCs. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the difficulty associated with integrating an inanimate NP with an action verb is reduced when the two appear in separate clauses, as in the case of an SRC.

The sentence-composition effect: Processing of complex sentences depends on the configuration of common noun phrases versus unusual noun phrases.

In 2 experiments, the authors used an eye tracking while reading methodology to examine how different configurations of common noun phrases versus unusual noun phrases (NPs) influenced the difference in processing difficulty between sentences containing object- and subject-extracted relative clauses. Results showed that processing difficulty was reduced when the head NP was unusual relative to the embedded NP, as manipulated by lexical frequency. When both NPs were common or both were unusual, results showed strong effects of both commonness and sentence structure, but no interaction. In contrast, when 1 NP was common and the other was unusual, results showed the critical interaction. These results provide evidence for a sentence-composition effect analogous to the list-composition effect that has been well documented in memory research, in which the pattern of recall for common versus unusual items is different, depending on whether items are studied in a pure or mixed list context. This work represents an important step in integrating the list-memory and sentence-processing literatures and provides additional support for the usefulness of studying complex sentence processing from the perspective of memory-based models.

Hierarchy and scope of planning in subject–verb agreement production

Two subject–verb agreement error elicitation studies tested the hierarchical feature-passing account of agreement computation in production and three timing-based alternatives: linear distance to the head noun, semantic integration, and a combined effect of both (a scope of planning account). In Experiment 1, participants completed subject noun phrase (NP) stimuli consisting of a head NP followed by two prepositional phrase (PP) modifiers, where the first PP modified the first NP, and the second PP modified one of the two preceding NPs. Semantic integration between the head noun and the local noun within each PP was held constant across structures. The mismatch error pattern showed an effect of linear distance to the head noun and no influence of hierarchical distance. In Experiment 2, participants completed NP PP PP stimuli in which both PPs modified the head noun, and both the order of the two PPs and the local nouns’ degree of semantic integration with the head noun were varied. The pattern of mismatch errors reflected a combination of semantic integration and linear distance to the head noun. These studies indicate that agreement processes are strongly constrained by grammatical-level scope of planning, with local nouns planned closer to the head having a greater chance of interfering with agreement computation.

Sentence Parsing in a Morphologically Rich Language – Finnish

AbstractWe review evidence on how sentences are parsed in Finnish – a morphologically rich language. The reviewed studies focus on effects of word order, morphological agreement, and morphological complexity. As regards word order, it has been shown that infrequent word orders are more difficult to process than frequent word orders. Moreover, pragmatic constraints can wipe out the effect of structural frequency, although the pragmatic influence is non‐immediate. Morphological agreement in modifier–head noun phrases facilitates their processing. The effect is delayed in nature, which (in combination with other evidence) suggests that facilitation operates at the level of syntactic integration. Finally, evidence is reviewed that demonstrates an effect of morphological complexity and density in the processing of complex verb constructions, but only when the complex and less complex constructions are equally frequent. This is not the case when the complex construction is more frequent, suggesting the structural frequency can override a morphological complexity effect.

Morphophonological influences on the comprehension of subject–verb agreement: An ERP study

Event-related potentials were used to study whether factors known to influence subject–verb number agreement in production exert analogous effects on sentence comprehension. Participants read Dutch sentences containing subject–verb number agreement errors while their brainwaves were measured. The determiner of the singular head noun could be ambiguous or unambiguous in number and the modifier (“local”) noun could be plural or singular. Both ambiguity and number match affect error rates in production. We expected evoked potentials in response to the verb to be modulated by number ambiguity; larger effects were expected when the sentences started with an unambiguous determiner. When the local noun was singular, we observed a more negative wave elicited by the incorrect verbs compared to the correct verbs in the 350–400 ms time-window. This effect was largest when the head noun phrase contained no number ambiguity. When the local noun was plural the waves were more positive for incorrect verbs than for correct verbs in the 600–650 ms time-window. Again this effect was largest when the head noun phrase contained no number ambiguity. Most importantly, the results show that agreement computation in comprehension is influenced by the same factors as in production. We further suggest that in the sentences with a singular local noun there is a shallow analysis of the sentence, but the sentences with a plural local noun require a deeper syntactic analysis.

DOES THE NOUN PHRASE ACCESSIBILITY HIERARCHY PREDICT THE DIFFICULTY ORDER IN THE ACQUISITION OF JAPANESE RELATIVE CLAUSES?

Although Keenan and Comrie's (1977) noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH) has been shown to predict the difficulty order of relative clauses (RCs) in SLA, most studies of the NPAH have been on European languages. This paper tests the prediction for Japanese. Study 1 analyzes RCs in an oral interview corpus from 90 learners of Japanese at four different levels of proficiency (first language = Mandarin Chinese, English, and Korean; N = 30 for each). Analysis of 1005 RCs from nonnative data and 231 RCs from 15 native speakers (NSs) of Japanese revealed that even lower proficiency learners used direct object (DO) and oblique (OBL) relatives, suggesting that subject (SU) relatives are not easier than DO or OBL relatives for second language learners of Japanese. The learners (except Korean NSs) also made strong associations between SU and animate heads and between DO/OBL and inanimate heads. Study 2 employed a sentence-combining experiment. Fifty NSs of Cantonese studying Japanese in Hong Kong took the test, which controlled for the animacy of head noun phrases and arguments of the verbs. Results revealed no significant difference between SU and DO, which were both easier than OBL, with only a minimal effect of animacy. However, errors of converting DO and OBL target items into SU relatives almost exclusively involved animate-head items. The results suggest that the NPAH does not predict the difficulty order of Japanese RCs, and that learners use different types of RCs based on the animacy of the head noun.This paper is based on a paper presented at the Workshop on the L2 Acquisition of Relative Clauses (January 28, 2005, Cornell University). We thank the participants at the workshop (in particular, Stephen Matthews and John Whitman), Kevin Gregg, Zoe Luk, William O'Grady, Wataru Suzuki, and the two anonymous SSLA reviewers for their invaluable comments and discussions. Study 1 is part of the first author's doctoral dissertation, submitted to Ochanomizu University, and has appeared in Japanese (Ozeki, 2005b). Study 2 was conducted at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, supported by a Direct Grant for Research from the university. We thank Alexis Chu, Yumi Inoue, Zoe Luk, and Chi-Ming Ho for their assistance in data collection and/or the construction of the test material and the statistical consultants at Cornell University (in particular, Freedom King) for their assistance.

INTRODUCTION

Typological linguistics has made important contributions to our understanding of SLA processes, especially in the early days of SLA research (e.g., Eckman, 1977; Hyltenstam, 1977; Rutherford, 1984). In particular, the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH), originally proposed as a generalization based on typological work by Keenan and Comrie (1977), has served as a basis on which many SLA studies are conducted. The NPAH predicts the ease of relativization as a function of the grammatical role of the head noun phrase (NP) modified by the relative clause (RC) observed in languages of the world: subject (SU) > direct object (DO) > indirect object (IO) > oblique (OBL) > genitive (GEN) > object of comparison (OComp). If a language can relativize on a position on the hierarchy, then it follows that any other higher position (or position to the left in the given schematic) can also be relativized on. For example, if a language has an OComp relative (e.g., the man who I am taller than), then it has a GEN relative (e.g., the man whose father I know) and all of the others higher on the hierarchy (i.e., OBL, IO, DO, and SU).