Object-extracted Relative Clauses Research Articles

Event-related potentials and brain oscillations reflect unbalanced allocation of retrieval and integration efforts in sentence comprehension

ABSTRACT Empirical studies have found a processing asymmetry between Chinese subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) and object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs). Still, there is no consensus on how this SRC-ORC asymmetry occurs. Thus, aiming to elucidate how the neural activity, in the forms of both event-related potentials (ERPs) and brain oscillations (i.e. event-related synchronisation/desynchronisation, ERS/ERD), attuned to sentences with different levels of processing difficulty, we conducted an electroencephalography (EEG) study to examine the comprehension of Chinese SRCs and ORCs. The results showed an N400 and a P600 effect when comparing SRCs and ORCs. Simultaneously, delta ERS was associated with N400 during the processing of both types of relative clauses and theta ERS with P600 during the processing of SRCs. By incorporating the ERP and ERS indexes, we propose that the dissociation between the integration and retrieval effort involved in sentence comprehension may account for the processing asymmetry between sentences.

Neural Correlates of Object-Extracted Relative Clause Processing Across English and Chinese

Abstract Are the brain bases of language comprehension the same across all human languages, or do these bases vary in a way that corresponds to differences in linguistic typology? English and Mandarin Chinese attest such a typological difference in the domain of relative clauses. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging with English and Chinese participants, who listened to the same translation-equivalent story, we analyzed neuroimages time aligned to object-extracted relative clauses in both languages. In a general linear model analysis of these naturalistic data, comprehension was selectively associated with increased hemodynamic activity in left posterior temporal lobe, angular gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex in both languages. This result suggests the processing of object-extracted relative clauses is subserved by a common collection of brain regions, regardless of typology. However, there were also regions that were activated uniquely in our Chinese participants albeit not to a significantly greater degree. These were in the temporal lobe. These Chinese-specific results could reflect structural ambiguity-resolution work that must be done in Chinese but not English object-extracted relative clauses.

What Memory-Load Interference Tasks Tell Us about Spoken Relative Clause Processing.

The relationship between working memory (WM) and language processing has been extensively investigated in cognitive research. Previous studies mostly obtain evidence from measuring the involvement of WM in complex syntactic structures reported with well-established processing asymmetry, e.g., relative clauses (RCs) in English. Rarely considered is the role of WM in language whose RC processing asymmetrypresents conflicting results, e.g., Chinese. This study addresses the research gap. Three experiments with a self-paced listening paradigm interfered with concurrent digit-load and lexical-decision interference were conductedon subject-extracted RCs (SRC) and object-extracted RCs (ORC). Listening times show no disparity between SRCs and ORCs, nor iseitherSRC or ORC processing more affected by syntactic complexity at comparable positions under each condition. Nevertheless, the post-sentence comprehension shows greater impairment in SRCs than ORCs. The results that memory load interfering does not differentially impair the availability of WM resources used for Chinese RC processing provide evidence for the specialization role of working memory. The findings demonstrate a dynamic, fluctuating wave pattern for Chinese RC processing. We arguethatthere is no RC processing asymmetry in Chinese.

Memory Versus Expectation: Processing Relative Clauses in a Flexible Word Order Language.

Memory limitations and probabilistic expectations are two key factors that have been posited to play a role in the incremental processing of natural language. Relative clauses (RCs) have long served as a key proving ground for such theories of language processing. Across three self-paced reading experiments, we test the online comprehension of Hungarian subject- and object-extracted RCs (SRCs and ORCs, respectively). We capitalize on the syntactic properties of Hungarian that allow for a variety of word orders within RCs, which helps us to delineate the processing costs associated with memory demand and violated expectations. Results showed a processing cost at the RC verb for structures that have longer verb-argument distances, despite those structures being more frequent in the corpus. These findings thus support theories that attribute processing difficulty to memory limitations, rather than theories that attribute difficulty to less expectedstructures.

Effects of working memory capacity and distance-based complexity on agreement processing: a crosslinguistic competition account

Abstract This study examined the extent to which working memory (WM) capacity and distance-based complexity influenced how second language (L2) learners used morphosyntactic information incrementally during online processing of L2 English long-distance subject-verb number agreement dependencies. The moving-window self-paced reading experiment involved 40 agreement-lacking first language (L1) Thai learners of English and 40 native English speakers. Distance-based complexity was manipulated based on whether the agreement controller and the agreeing verb were intervened by a short-distance subject-extracted relative clause or a long-distance object-extracted relative clause in line with the Dependency Locality Theory. The findings indicated that both native speakers and L2 learners experienced less processing difficulty in short-distance conditions, showing heightened sensitivity to agreement violations. Their sensitivity was, however, modulated as a function of distance-based complexity and WM capacity. The L2 learners’ lack of sensitivity in the long-distance conditions was associated with their limited pool of cognitive resources. Consistent with the L1–L2 structural competition account, these findings suggest in relation to morphology learning in SLA that L2 learners may labor under parallel activation during crosslinguistic competition, whereby cognitive resources are insufficient to resolve long-distance agreement dependencies, thus resulting in reduced sensitivity to L2 morphosyntactic violations.

Relative Clause Effects at the Matrix Verb Depend on Type of Intervening Material.

Although a large literature demonstrates that object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) are harder to process than subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs), there is less agreement regarding where during processing this difficulty emerges, as well as how best to explain these effects. An eye-tracking study by Staub, Dillon, and Clifton (2017) demonstrated that readers experience more processing difficulty at the matrix verb for ORCs than for SRCs when the matrix verb immediately follows the relative clause (RC), but the difficulty is eliminated if a prepositional phrase (PP) intervenes. A careful examination of Staub etal.'s materials reveals that the types of PPs used in the experiment were a mixture of locative and temporal PPs. This is important in that locative PPs can modify either a noun phrase or a verb phrase (VP), whereas temporal PPs typically modify VPs, resulting in systematic differences in PP attachment across ORCs versus SRCs. In the current eye-tracking experiment, we systematically manipulated RC type and PP type in the same sentences used by Staub etal. The manipulation of PP type resulted in a crossover pattern at the matrix verb such that there was a trend for reading times to be longer for ORCs than SRCs when the PP was locative, but reading times were longer for SRCs than ORCs when the PP was temporal. These results provide important information regarding the locus of RC-processing effects and highlight the importance of carefully considering how intervening material might unintentionally alter the structure or the meaning of a sentence.

Relative clause processing in L1 and L2 English

Abstract This study investigates the locus of processing difficulty in English object-extracted relative clauses during both native and non-native sentence comprehension. Two L-maze experiments were conducted – one with English native speakers (n = 48) and another with highly proficient Chinese learners of English (n = 20) – to compare the processing of object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) with that of subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs). Both participants groups revealed clear processing costs for ORC sentences. In both cases, this processing difficulty was localized at the beginning of the ORC, and specifically at the article that introduced the ORC subject (The soldier who the sailor roughly pushed….). These findings are taken to indicate that structural expectations play a central role in the first- and second-language processing of English relative clauses and of complex sentences more generally.

Use of Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Assess Syntactic Processing by Monolingual and Bilingual Adults and Children.

This exploratory study assessed the use of functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine hemodynamic response patterns during sentence processing. Four groups of participants: monolingual English children, bilingual Chinese-English children, bilingual Chinese-English adults and monolingual English adults were given an agent selection syntactic processing task. Bilingual child participants were classified as simultaneous or sequential bilinguals to examine the impact of first language, age of second-language acquisition (AoL2A), and the length of second language experience on behavioral performance and cortical activation. Participants were asked to select the agent of four types of sentences: subject-verb-object (SVO), passive (PAS), subject-extracted relative clause (SR), and object-extracted relative clause (OR) adopted from the “Whatdunit” task by Montgomery et al. (2016). Semantic cues were removed by using inanimate nouns for agents and patients, which constrained participants to make decisions based on syntactic knowledge. Behavioral results showed greater accuracy for canonical SVO and SR sentence types than for noncanonical OR and PAS sentence types, which aligns with prior studies. Neuroimaging results revealed greater hemodynamic responses to relative clauses (i.e., SR and OR sentences) than to simple sentences (SVO and PAS), especially for Chinese-English bilinguals suggesting first-language transfer influencing sentence processing in English. The effects AoL2A and the length of second language experience showed no significant differences between simultaneous and sequential bilinguals or between bilingual adults and children for identifying the correct agent in each sentence. However, neuroimaging results demonstrated greater hemodynamic responses in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) in simultaneous bilinguals compared to sequential bilinguals and greater hemodynamic responses in left and right DLPFC and left IPL among bilingual adults. Different behavioral and neural hemodynamic response patterns afford new insights into the effects of syntactic knowledge on sentence processing.

Dynamic brain connectivity attuned to the complexity of relative clause sentences revealed by a single-trial analysis

To explore the issue of how the human brain processes sentences with different levels of complexity, we sought to compare the neural substrates underlying the processing of Chinese subject-extracted relative clause (SRC) and object-extracted relative clause (ORC) sentences in a trial-by-trial fashion. Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the involvement of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left superior temporal gyrus (LSTG) is critical for the processing of relative clause (RC) sentences. In this study, we employed independent component analysis (ICA) to decompose brain activity into a set of independent components. Then, the independent component maps were spatially normalized using a surface-based approach in order to further spatially correlate and match the equivalent components from individual participants. The selected equivalent components indicated that the LIFG and the LSTG were consistently engaged in sentence processing among the participants. Subsequently, we observed alterations in the functional coupling between the LIFG and the LSTG in response to SRCs and ORCs using a Granger causality analysis. Specifically, comprehending Chinese ORCs with a canonical word order only involved a unidirectional connection from the LIFG to the LSTG for the integration of lexical-syntactic information. On the other hand, comprehending Chinese SRCs required bi-directional connectivity between the LIFG and the LSTG to fulfill increased integration demands in reconstructing the argument hierarchy due to a non-canonical word order. Furthermore, through a single-trial analysis, the strength of the connectivity from the LIFG to the LSTG was found to be significantly correlated with the complexity of the SRC sentences as quantified by eye-tracking measures. These findings indicated that the effective connectivity from the LIFG to the LSTG played an important role in the comprehension of complex sentences and that enhanced strength of this connectivity might reflect increased integration demands and restructuring attempts during sentence processing. Taken together, the results of the present study reveal that interregional interaction in the brain network for sentence processing can be dynamically engaged in response to different levels of complexity and also shed some light on the interpretation of neuroimaging and behavioral evidence when accounting for the nature of sentence complexity during reading.

Brain connectivity in the left frontotemporal network dynamically modulated by processing difficulty: Evidence from Chinese relative clauses.

Although the connection between the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left superior temporal gyrus (LSTG) has been found to be essential for the comprehension of relative clause (RC) sentences, it remains unclear how the LIFG and the LSTG interact with each other, especially during the processing of Chinese RC sentences with different processing difficulty. This study thus conducted a 2 × 2 (modifying position × extraction position) factorial analyses to examine how these two factors influences regional brain activation. The results showed that, regardless of the modifying position, greater activation in the LIFG was consistently elicited in Chinese subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) with non-canonical word order than object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) with canonical word order, implying that the LIFG subserving the ordering process primarily contributes to the processing of information with increased integration demands due to the non-canonical sequence. Moreover, the directional connection between the LIFG and the LSTG appeared to be modulated by different modifying positions. When the RC was at the subject-modifying position, the effective connectivity from the LIFG to the LSTG was dominantly activated for sentence comprehension; whereas when the RC was at the object-modifying position thus being more difficult, it might be the feedback mechanism from the LSTG back to the LIFG that took place in sentence processing. These findings reveal that brain activation in between the LIFG and the LSTG may be dynamically modulated by different processing difficulty and suggest the relative specialization but extensive collaboration involved in the LIFG and the LSTG for sentence comprehension.

An expectation-based account for the processing difficulty of it object-extracted relative clauses

An expectation-based account for the processing difficulty of it object-extracted relative clauses

Enhanced left inferior frontal to left superior temporal effective connectivity for complex sentence comprehension: fMRI evidence from Chinese relative clause processing

Previous studies investigating the processing of complex sentences have demonstrated the involvement of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and left superior temporal gyrus (LSTG), which might subserve ordering and storage of linguistic components, respectively, for sentence comprehension. However, how these brain regions are interconnected, especially during the processing of Chinese sentences, need to be further explored. In this study, the neural network supporting the comprehension of Chinese relative clause was identified. Both the LIFG and LSTG exhibited higher activation in processing subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) than object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs). Moreover, a Granger causality analysis revealed that the effective connectivity from the LIFG to LSTG was significant only when participants read Chinese SRCs, which were argued to be more difficult than ORCs. Contrary to the observations of an SRC advantage in most other languages, the present results provide clear neuroimaging evidence for an ORC advantage in Chinese.

Preference for Object Relative Clauses in Chinese Sentence Comprehension: Evidence From Online Self-Paced Reading Time.

Most prior studies have reported that subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) are easier to process than object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs). However, whether such an SRC preference is universal across different languages remains an open question. Several reports from Chinese have provided conflicting results; thus, in the present study, we conducted two self-paced reading experiments to examine the comprehension of Chinese relative clauses. The results demonstrated a clear ORC preference that Chinese ORCs were easier to comprehend than Chinese SRCs. These findings were most compatible with the prediction of the integration cost account, which claims that the processing difference between SRCs and ORCs arises at the point of dependency formation. The ORC preference in Chinese poses a challenge to the universality of the SRC preference assumed by the structural distance hypothesis and highlights the values of cross-linguistic research.

Relation between Frequency and Processing Difficulty of English Relative Clauses by L2 Learners: A Learner Corpus Analysis

This paper explores whether frequency can play a role in accounting for difficulties in processing English relative clauses (RCs) by L2 learners. Previous experimental studies showed that the processing difficulty of RCs in L2 is modulated by the syntactic function of the head noun and noun animacy. By analyzing a corpus of essays written by Korean adult learners of English, this paper shows that the distribution patterns of the RCs in the learner corpus are consistent with the experimental findings. Object-extracted RCs almost exclusively occur with inanimate head nouns, while subject-extracted RCs occur about two times more frequently with animate head nouns than inanimate head nouns. It is also found that the object-extracted RCs with inanimate head nouns often contain animate subjects and have the animacy configuration reflecting typical thematic structures of transitive clauses. The results of the corpus analysis provide support to frequency-based approaches for L2 processing, claiming that a higher frequency of a particular RC form makes it easier for L2 learners to acquire and process. (Chonnam National University)

Input frequency and construction interference interactions in L2 development

The interaction between input frequency and constructional interference receives little attention in second language (L2) research. Two studies were conducted to test the effect of this interaction. Study 1 examined effects of both Zipfian frequency (ZF) and balanced frequency (BF) on L2 learning of English subject-extracted relative clauses (SRs). Participants learned SRs and finished a picture description task at pretest, posttest and delayed posttest. Results suggest that ZF was not superior to BF for learners to use SRs. Study 2 tested effects of ZF and BF on L2 learning of English object-extracted relative clauses (ORs). The learning and testing procedures were the same as those in Study 1, but different from Study 1 participants either with or without previous exposure to SRs learned ORs. Results show that ZF was not superior to BF for learners without previous exposure to SRs to use ORs, but more beneficial than BF for those with previous exposure to SRs to use ORs to describe pictures. These findings demonstrate that ZF was more effective than BF in inhibiting SR interference.

Sources of relative clause processing difficulty: Evidence from Russian

This study investigates the sources of processing difficulty in complex sentences involving relative clauses (RCs). Self-paced reading and eye tracking were used to test the comprehension of Russian subject- and object-extracted RCs (SRCs and ORCs) that had the same word-order configuration, but different noun phrase (NP) types (full NPs vs. pronouns) in the embedded clause. In both SRCs and ORCs, this NP intervened between the modified noun and the RC verb. A corpus analysis and acceptability rating experiment indicated different frequency/preference profiles for this word order depending on RC type and embedded NP type. In line with these profiles, processing difficulty was revealed early in the embedded clause for less frequent/dispreferred constructions. Later in the embedded clause, the processing of the RC verb was comparable for both SRCs and ORCs when the same number of NP arguments was available for integration. While there were no indications of an ORC penalty at or after this verb, late-stage comprehension difficulty was found for full-NP ORCs, but not for their pronominal counterparts, suggesting that similarity-based interference in combination with ORC structure influences the overall comprehension of these sentences. Taken together, these findings support a hybrid model under which independent sources of processing difficulty affect different stages of RC comprehension.

Ambiguity in the processing of Mandarin Chinese relative clauses: One factor cannot explain it all.

This study addresses the question of whether native Mandarin Chinese speakers process and comprehend subject-extracted relative clauses (SRC) more readily than object-extracted relative clauses (ORC) in Mandarin Chinese. Presently, this has been a hotly debated issue, with various studies producing contrasting results. Using two eye-tracking experiments with ambiguous and unambiguous RCs, this study shows that both ORCs and SRCs have different processing requirements depending on the locus and time course during reading. The results reveal that ORC reading was possibly facilitated by linear/temporal integration and canonicity. On the other hand, similarity-based interference made ORCs more difficult, and expectation-based processing was more prominent for unambiguous ORCs. Overall, RC processing in Mandarin should not be broken down to a single ORC (dis)advantage, but understood as multiple interdependent factors influencing whether ORCs are either more difficult or easier to parse depending on the task and context at hand.

Prominence of gender cues in the assignment of thematic roles in German

ABSTRACTTwo eye-tracking experiments examined influences of grammatical and stereotypical gender cues on the assignment of thematic roles in German. Participants (N1= 32,N2= 40) read sentences with subject- and object-extracted relative clauses, where thematic agents and patients remained ambiguous until the end of the relative clause. The results reveal a linguistic gender bias: agent roles are assigned more easily to grammatically masculine than feminine role nouns and stereotypically neutral than female ones. The opposite pattern is observed in the assignment of patient roles for stereotypical but not grammatical gender. The findings are discussed within the framework of situation model theories as well as in constraint-based and similarity-based interference accounts, while gender is viewed as a dimension of prominence.

An ERP Study of the Object Preference in Processing Chinese Relative Clauses

Through an event-related potential (ERP) study, we examined the processing mechanisms of four types of Chinese (Mandarin) relative clauses (RCs), namely subject subject-extracted relative clause (SSR), subject object-extracted relative clause (SOR), object subject-extracted relative clause (OSR), and object object-extracted relative clause (OOR) to test the universality and language specificity of RC comprehension processes. The results of this study support a preference for object-extracted RCs modifying both the subject and object of a sentence, i.e., SORs and OORs. In particular, ERP results showed stronger P600 effects in the RC region for SSRs compared with SORs, which we argue reflects a canonical word order theory. Stronger N400 effects were observed for verbs compared with nouns, reflecting easier understanding for nouns. ERP results from the matrix clause object and the relativizer ' de” showed stronger P600 effects in SSRs compared with SORs, suggesting thematic structure effects on syntactic construction and the processing preference of the whole sentence.

Disambiguation and Integration in Korean Relative Clause Processing.

Previous studies on Korean relative clauses (RC) show that, with respect to processing, object-extracted relative clauses (ORC) are more difficult to process at the head noun than subject-extracted relative clauses within temporarily ambiguous contexts. ORCs, however, are predicted by experience-based processing models to incur a greater processing cost during early processing stages at the RC verb, since it is a likely locus of disambiguation for RCs in Korean, and because ORCs are a less frequent structure. Consequently, the current study investigates whether processing difficulty for ORCs manifests itself at the RC verb using eye-tracking methods, a simple sentence structure and a sentential-decision task. The results revealed significantly increased go-past reading times for ORCs at the RC verb. We believe this is a result of a less frequent structure being more difficult to parse during disambiguation. Accordingly, experience-based models of processing can accurately predict difficulty for ORCs in Korean.