Relative Clauses Research Articles

Relative clause attachment in Mandarin Chinese: insights from classifier-noun agreement

Relative clause attachment in Mandarin Chinese: insights from classifier-noun agreement

Intervention and amelioration effects in the acquisition of Spanish object relative clauses: the role of word order and DOM

Intervention and amelioration effects in the acquisition of Spanish object relative clauses: the role of word order and DOM

The division of main and subordinate discourse information in real-time comprehension

The study examines the role of discourse structure representation in real-time comprehension, with a focus on how main discourse and subordinate discourse information guides language processing. Using a web-based visual world eyetracking paradigm, we investigated pronoun resolution in two types of relative clauses: appositive relative clauses (ARCs) and restrictive relative clauses (RRCs). While ARCs were generally considered as secondary and side-commentary information, aligning with subordinate discourse, RRCs were usually construed as part of the main discourse. Making use of this distinction between ARCs and RRCs, the current study examined pronoun resolution with two possible antecedents. In one condition (RRC), the two antecedents were part of the same discourse whereas in the other (ARC), they were in distinct discourse units. We found stronger competition between the two possible antecedents in the former condition than the latter. Our findings can potentially be explained by an encoding interference, where linguistic entities encoded with similar discourse status information can lead to an interference effect.

Argument structure affects relative clause extraposition: corpus evidence from Persian

The extraposition of a relative clause creates a discontinuous dependency between the relative clause and its host noun phrase, as in A man just entered the bank who claimed to have a gun. Since discontinuous dependencies are known to increase processing effort, a key question is why speakers produce them in the first place. Some factors known to affect extraposition – for example, the length of the relative clause and the main verb phrase – have received processing-based explanations, but others haven’t. We focus on two factors described by previous research: verb type and the grammatical function of the noun phrase hosting the relative clause. Specifically, extraposition from grammatical subjects is more common with unaccusative and passive verbs in English; further, extraposition is more common from grammatical objects than subjects in Dutch and German. We replicate these findings using corpus data from Persian. Further, we propose that verb type and grammatical function can be linked to a single underlying notion: argument structure. We demonstrate that argument structure modulates the likelihood of extraposition in Persian. We suggest that this occurs because speakers choose to extrapose relative clauses in order to keep the main clause verb close to its internal arguments. This explanation extends previous findings in psycholinguistics on the role of argument structure in speech planning during language production.

Control and intermediate scrambling: An investigation of Kazakh relative clauses

This paper investigates apparent locality violations in Kazakh (Turkic) relative clauses. The empirical starting point of this study is the configuration where the genitive-marked relative clause subject establishes agreement with the noun phrase modified by the relative clause, constituting an ostensibly non-local Agree relation, a phenomenon that is common among Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic and Finno-Ugric languages. Contra previous proposals arguing that the subject is situated inside a defective relative clause and it gets case from the D head of the modified noun phrase, this paper proposes a novel analysis of this phenomenon: the genitive phrase is base-generated in the possessor position and it controls a PRO subject in the relative clause. After establishing that the genitive “subjects” are relative clause-external, the paper turns to extraction out of the relative clause: RC constituents can undergo intermediate scrambling to the left of the genitive-marked phrase. This is unexpected under the assumption that relative clauses are strong islands for extraction. The paper suggests that this type of RC allows extraction because it is not an adjunct.

Online evidence for pseudo-relative effects on Italian RC attachment resolution

ABSTRACT This study investigates the resolution of relative clause attachment ambiguities, focussing on the availability of Pseudo-Relative Small Clauses (PRs) in Italian. The PR-first hypothesis posits that, when controlling for other factors, PRs are preferred over relative clauses due to their structural simplicity, leading to an apparent preference for “high attachment” in PR-licensing languages. Through a self-paced reading experiment, this study examines how PR availability affects ambiguity resolution in Italian, and how it interacts with locality principles during online sentence processing. We find a significant slowdown in the LA condition with PR-licensing verbs, also tied to lower comprehension accuracy, and unclear evidence for an advantage of LA in non-PR contexts. Overall, our results add support to the PR-first hypothesis for Italian, while opening new questions about the interplay of structural ambiguity, locality, and language-specific properties.

Let’s Do It Differently: Exploring the Effectiveness of 5E-Supported EFL Grammar Instruction

The teaching of and research on grammar have long been central to language education, with an ongoing quest for more effective models for fostering student understanding and application. The 5E (viz., Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation) instructional model, recognized for its effectiveness in promoting engagement and active learning, may not only constitute an innovative approach to grammar instruction but also leverage an interactive inquiry-based environment which improves student comprehension and retention of grammatical concepts. This study examines the potential effectiveness of the 5E Model in EFL grammar instruction. The participants, 70 students in two intact tenth-grade sections from a public school in Irbid, Jordan, were randomly assigned into an experimental group (n=35), taught using the 5E Model, and a control group (n=35), taught per the guidelines of the prescribed teacher’s book. A pre-/post- test targeting five grammatical structures (viz., state and dynamic verbs, second conditional, making suggestions, defining relative clauses, and non-defining relative clauses) was used. The findings showed statistically significant differences (at α= 0.05) between the experimental and control group students’ performance in both overall grammar and each of the five structures in favor of the former. The study concludes with several pedagogical implications and recommendations for further research.

The Representation of Social Media in English Textbook: A Hallidayan Perspective

This Hallidayan transitivity study explores how social media is represented in the reading texts of a nationally issued English textbook for Indonesian year-twelve students. In particular, this study aims to reveal the transitivity system patterns constructed in the reading materials about social media. This study adopted qualitative perspective as the approach and content/text analysis as the method. The data were reading materials of three chapters selected purposely from an English textbook. The reading texts then were analysed into Hallidayan six types of process, namely material, mental, behavioural, verbal, existential, and relational clauses. After that, each process type was further analysed. The findings firstly reveal that material (55%), mental (30%), and relational clauses (12%) appear in sequence as the dominant process types. Other processes were also found in the data but their occurrences are limited, namely 1% for each of behavioural, verbal, and existential clauses. Secondly, the findings expose that each process type is patterned distinctively in representing different issues about social media. It is expected that the findings of this study contribute to how to represent events in English textbooks functionally so that the educational goal set by book can be obtained. Despite its findings, this study relies only on a single book as the data source. Further studies can make use of more data sets.

Russian Children and Their Relatives: What Can a Free Word Order Language Reveal About the Subject/Object Asymmetry?

ABSTRACT The present study revisits the well-attested phenomenon of Subject/Object Asymmetry in relative clause comprehension by monolingual Russian pre-school children. Additionally, it examines the NP-V and the V-NP word order types when the embedded NP precedes or follows the verb. Both the word orders are grammatical for Russian subject and object relative clauses alike. Object relative clause comprehension difficulty was evidenced across all the age groups. Word order alternation (V-NP vs NP-V) did not significantly affect the accuracy rates. Besides the efficacy of the agent-first strategy, growing morphological knowledge compels children to update their ongoing structural analysis, which results in embedded NP errors. Yet, even at 6 years of age, children do not display word order preferences to go with a particular relative clause type that are found in Russian-speaking adults. Restricted exposure to written texts at pre-school age as well as low validity of word order as a cue to thematic role assignment are discussed as possible reasons for children’s insensitivity to word order manipulation in Russian relative clauses.

Production of relative clauses in Cantonese-speaking children with and without Developmental Language Disorder

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) has been explained as either a deficit deriving from an abstract representational deficit or as emerging from difficulties in acquiring and coordinating multiple interacting cues guiding learning. These competing explanations are often difficult to decide between when tested on European languages. This paper reports an experimental study of relative clause (RC) production in Cantonese-speaking children with and without DLD, which enabled us to test multiple developmental predictions derived from one prominent theory − emergentism. Children with DLD (N = 22; aged 6;6–9;7) were compared with age-matched typically-developing peers (N = 23) and language-matched, typically-developing children (N = 21; aged 4;7–7;6) on a sentence repetition task. Results showed that children’s production across multiple RC types was influenced by structural frequency, general semantic complexity, and the linear order of constituents, with the DLD group performing worse than their age-matched and language-matched peers. The results are consistent with the emergentist explanation of DLD.

On Relative Clause Attachment Preferences in the L2 LSTM LM

On Relative Clause Attachment Preferences in the L2 LSTM LM

The Continuity of Head Nouns: The Difference in Relativizability between Korean and Chinese

The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy cannot explain the difference in relativizability between Chinese and Korean in authentic discourse. Korean exhibits a higher preference for relativization compared to Chinese and this article aims to account for this difference from the perspective of topic continuity. Specifically, the continuity of head nouns within relative clauses is stronger in Korean than in Chinese. By analyzing the parameters of referential distance and potential interference, this study finds that the head nouns in Korean relative clauses display a broader range on the continuum of continuity compared to those in Chinese relative clauses. Furthermore, the difference in the strength of continuity of head nouns between Chinese and Korean relative clauses is attributed to the typological distinction between the Component-Integral Languages and Component-Metonymic Languages postulated within the framework of the Event-Domain Cognitive Model.

A Pragmatic Presupposition Analysis in Sir David Attenborough’s Climate Change Speeches

Climate change is a critical global issue that requires effective communication and public engagement to drive necessary actions and policy changes. Despite the critical importance of climate change communication, this topic has been limited in its coverage within discourse analysis research, making this study’s investigation particularly significant. This study aims to examine the communication strategies used by a prominent public figure, namely Sir David Attenborough, in addressing climate change issues. To achieve that, this study conducts a qualitative analysis of Sir David Attenborough’s discourse on climate change, with a specific focus on the role of presuppositions in framing his communication strategies. Through analyzing a corpus of his public speeches, this investigation identifies and categorizes the presuppositional triggers employed by Attenborough, particularly those that elicit existential presuppositions triggered by definite descriptions (78% of observed triggers) and structural presuppositions such as restrictive relative clauses (14% of observed triggers). This analysis provides insights into how Attenborough effectively conveys notions of ownership, shared responsibility, and inspires action through strategic use of presuppositions. Examining the persuasive strategies of a prominent public figure, this study makes a valuable contribution to the field and future investigations on climate change communication.

Are main clauses really ‘main’ clauses? The case of relative clauses in spoken Estonian and Finnish

Are main clauses really ‘main’ clauses? The case of relative clauses in spoken Estonian and Finnish

Continuous Theta-Burst Stimulation on the Left Posterior Inferior Frontal Gyrus Perturbs Complex Syntactic Processing Stability in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract The structure of human language is inherently hierarchical. The left posterior inferior frontal gyrus (LpIFG) is proposed to be a core region for constructing syntactic hierarchies. However, it remains unclear whether LpIFG plays a causal role in syntactic processing in Mandarin Chinese and whether its contribution depends on syntactic complexity, working memory, or both. We addressed these questions by applying inhibitory continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) over LpIFG. Thirty-two participants processed sentences containing embedded relative clauses (i.e., complex syntactic processing), syntactically simpler coordinated sentences (i.e., simple syntactic processing), and non-hierarchical word lists (i.e., word list processing) after receiving real or sham cTBS. We found that cTBS significantly increased the coefficient of variation, a representative index of processing stability, in complex syntactic processing (esp., when subject relative clause was embedded) but not in the other two conditions. No significant changes in d′ and reaction time were detected in these conditions. The findings suggest that (a) inhibitory effect of cTBS on the LpIFG might be prominent in perturbing the complex syntactic processing stability but subtle in altering the processing quality; and (b) the causal role of the LpIFG seems to be specific for syntactic processing rather than working memory capacity, further evidencing their separability in LpIFG. Collectively, these results support the notion of the LpIFG as a core region for complex syntactic processing across languages.

Prosodic Analysis of Noun Class Markers in the Syntax of BÀTỌ̀NU Language

The grammatical derivation of languages varies, leading to language specificity. In particular, languages with noun classes have unique methods of realizing them through prefixing and sometimes suffixing, such as in the Bàtọ̀nu language. This study focuses on the interface between syntax and phonology in the grammatical realization of the noun class system in the Bàtọ̀nu language, spoken in the Baruteen Local Government Area of Kwara State in Nigeria. Interviews were conducted to gather data, supplemented by secondary sources. Theoretical principles from Government and Binding Theory (GB) and Autosegmental Phonology were used to represent sentence structure and the tonal analysis of the data. Previous research established that the language has seven noun class markers (NCM). We found that phonological features, such as labialization, nasalization, and tone, can influence and determine the grammatical functions of class markers in languages that attest to them. In the case of Bàtọ́nu NCM, the tone is the determining factor. We assume that the class markers are unmarked at the underlying representation (UR), and when a floating high tone (HT) is assigned to the NCM underlyingly, they function as class markers. When a floating mid-tone (MT) is assigned, they become relative clause marker variants, and when in contact with the HT focus morpheme -á in focus constructions in the language, they function as focus marker variants.

El arduo despertar de un cambio lingüístico en la distancia comunicativa: paralelismos y divergencias con textos de la inmediatez en las relativas oblicuas del primer español moderno

Within the framework of historical sociolinguistics, the present study deals with the incidence of the textual axis at the dawn of a change affecting relative obliques in early modern Spanish. To this end, both the diffusion and the conditioning of the new variant (en + art + que), as opposed to the traditional one (en + que), are studied comparatively in two corpora composed of texts close to immediacy (private correspondence) and communicative distance (literary and legal-administrative) from the eighteenth century. The results of the study show, on the one hand, that the expansion of innovative forms was significantly greater in the documents of immediacy than in those of distance. On the other hand, it is found that, despite largely similar internal conditions, some of them exhibit idiosyncratic behaviour revealing a certain disparity in these initial stages of change. All this highlights the need to include textual typology in the study of language variation and change, alongside the usual linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. Keywords: historical sociolinguistics, linguistic variation and change, discursive traditions, prepositional relative clauses, early modern Spanish

The acquisition of object relative clauses in Spanish

The acquisition of object relative clauses in Spanish

Early Mapping of Complex DPS in Prepositional Relative Clauses

Early Mapping of Complex DPS in Prepositional Relative Clauses

Differential Object Marking in Structurally Complex Contexts in Spanish: Evidence from Bilingual and Monolingual Processing

This study examines whether Differential Object Marking (DOM) realization and word order in relative clauses (RCs) in Spanish affect processing and interpretation among monolinguals and highly proficient Catalan–Spanish bilinguals. RCs are parallel in Catalan and Spanish, but DOM is much more restricted in Catalan than in Spanish, and, interestingly, the distinction between subject and object RCs relies mainly on the presence/absence of DOM. To examine DOM optionality, we concentrate on the top portion of the animacy scale and test the human/non-human contrast. Exploring these two populations allows us to test whether they resort to different strategies for the following three reasons: (1) bilingualism places an increased burden on memory processes); (2) the partial overlap between both DOM systems might lead to the influence from Catalan into Spanish); and (3) optionality has been proposed to characterize bilingual grammars). Findings from a word-by-word non-cumulative self-paced reading task showed that DOM modulates RC processing. With [+human] obligatorily marked objects, both monolinguals and bilinguals read subject RCs faster than object RCs, suggesting a strategy favoring subject RCs. However, monolinguals solved the interpretation early while processing but bilinguals, despite the more restricted DOM character of Catalan, are sensitive to DOM albeit displaying delayed spill-over effects. With [−human] optionally marked objects, bilinguals performed faster than monolinguals. We suggest that the uneven experience with DOM in Catalan, particularly with the non-standard variety that frequently displays DOM and that our bilinguals also speak in everyday conversations, facilitates bilinguals’ adaptation to the optional marking of non-human objects in Spanish, much in the same manner that they accommodate the presence or absence of DOM with both human and non-human objects in other native language.