English Relative Clauses Research Articles

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

Remarks on English Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses

The purpose of this paper is two folds: one is to examine the controversies among the existing research over the syntactic properties of English non-Restrictive Relative Clauses (hereafter, NRRCs) as opposed to Restrictive Relative Clauses (hereafter, RRCs). Secondly, the internal structure of English NRRCs is proposed in order to accommodate the disputes from the previous research such as Quirk, et. al. (1985), Borsley (1992, 1997), Smits (1988), McCawley (1998), Lobeck (2000), Huddleston & Pullum (2008), Vries (2002, 2006), Aoun & Li (2003), Arnold (2004), and Arnold & Borsely (2008), we argue that English NRRCs, unlike RRCs, are XP-adjuncts, (contra Lobeck 2000, Aarts 2001, 2008, among others), arriving at a conclusion that NRRC involves a discontinuous constituent. Furthermore, this Wh-CP in English NRRC enters into the syntactic derivation via Sidewards movement (hereafter, SM) in the sense of Hornstein (2001, 2009) in order to eventually form a single-rooted tree. The kind of architecture we advocate for English NRRC in this study is on a par with what Newson (2006) has argued for: English RRC is an X’-Adjunct and NRRC is an XP-Adjunct. Most of the troublesome properties that have long been discussed in literature receive a new analysis under the current study. For example, the obviation of WCO effect or ‘weakest crossover’ (Lasnik & Stowell 1991) observed in English NRRC, unlike in RRCs (Authier & Reed 2005), can be straightforwardly accounted for, if the two distinct structures are to be adopted. The theoretical implication of this proposal is that there are two types of adjuncts, one is X’ adjunct and the other is XP-adjunct, contra Hornstein (2009).

Which -hunting and the Standard English relative clause

Alternation among restrictive relativizers in written Standard English is undergoing a massive shift from which to that . In corpora of written-edited-published British and American English covering the period from 1961–1992, American English spearheads this change. We study 16,868 restrictive relative clauses with inanimate antecedents from the Brown quartet of corpora. Predictors include additional areas of variation regulated by prescriptivism. We show that: (i) relativizer deletion follows different constraints from the selection of either that or which ; (ii) this change is a case of institutionally backed colloquialization- cum -Americanization; and (iii) uptake of the precept correlates with avoidance of the passive voice at the text level but not with other prescriptive rules.

Which -hunting and the Standard English relative clause: Online Supplement: Automatic Zero -Relative Detection

Which -hunting and the Standard English relative clause: Online Supplement: Automatic Zero -Relative Detection

The puzzling degraded status of who free relative clauses in English

There is a puzzling asymmetry in English with respect to free relative clauses introduced by what and who, with the former (e.g. [What Glenn said] didn't make much sense) intuitively being much more acceptable than the latter (e.g. [Who Glenn married] didn't make much money). In this squib, we explore this degraded acceptability of who free relative clauses, and from the results of an experimental study we identify syntactic features of the sentence that influence the level of acceptability. We discuss the difficulty in finding an independently motivated solution to the puzzling asymmetry within current theories of syntax, semantic and processing. Finally, we touch on a broader theoretical question relating to the robust cross-linguistic process by which elements of the set of wh-words in a language are able to extend their function from introducing interrogative clauses to introducing other clausal constructions.

The influences of proficiency levels and working memory capacities on sentence comprehension by Japanese learners of English

Examining influences of two participant factors, i.e., proficiency and working memory (WM), in second language (L2) sentence processing, we discuss how Japanese learners of English (JLEs) with distinct proficiency levels and WM capacities comprehend relative clauses in English. Reading times (RTs) were collected from intermediate and elementary levels of JLEs with different WM capacities using a self-paced reading task. The results revealed that: (1) JLEs had difficulty interpreting object relative clauses with animate antecedents; (2) JLEs at the elementary level processed the critical region in subject relative clauses with animate antecedents faster than that in object relative clauses with animate antecedents; (3) JLEs with the large WM capacity read embedded verbs faster than those with the small WM capacity; and (4) RTs of the verb region in the subject relative clause were shorter than those in the object relative clause. From these results, we propose that lower proficient L2 learners depend heavily on animacy information when they comprehend relative clauses though there appears evidence that JLEs also make use of structural information. Moreover, we suggest that WM has a positive role in the L2 comprehension process, similar to findings in previous L2 processing studies.

Factors Influencing Korean L2 Learners’ Errors in English Relative Clauses

Predicting and providing an account for the difficulty of English relative clause comprehension for L2 learners has been attempted within frameworks such as noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie, 1977), and filler-gap hypothesis (e.g. O`Grady, Lee & Choo, 2003). The current study probes whether the frameworks can effectively account for native Korean learners` errors and comprehension of English RCs. The result shows that multiple factors should be considered, rather than a single framework, in order to explain the difficulty of English relative clauses for Korean L2 learners. This research examined 25 intermediate Korean learners of English using a picture selection task. The result and error analysis suggest that several factors such as the number of intervening nodes demonstrated by the filler-gap hypothesis, canonical word order of English, length of relative clauses, and relative marker used in the relative clauses influence the English learners` comprehension. The findings may assist developing an efficient pedagogical tool for teaching English relative clauses.

THE ACCESSIBILITY HIERARCHY OF RELATIVIZATION IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

The accessibility hierarchy of relativization (Keenan and Comrie 1977) describes the restrictions that the grammar of a language imposes on the relativizability of clause and phrase constituents. This paper explores the applicability and validity of the accessibility hierarchy in second language acquisition and production. It has been noticed that even Danes who are fairly proficient in English (university students) seem to have difficulties with relativizing possessors despite the fact that Danish has the exact same rules for relativization as English. All the elements listed in Keenan and Comrie’s hierarchy can be relativized, and several of the relativizers in the two languages are cognates. On the one hand, the apparent difficulties of Danes defy common sense and theories on contrastivity and cross-linguistic influence (Ellis 2009, 2012, Jarvis 2011, Lado 1957), according to which Danes should not have problems with the formation of English relative clauses. On the other hand, they lend the accessibility hypothesis support since Danes seem to be challenged by the relativization of constituents that are low on the accessibility hierarchy, suggesting that the hierarchy is not only relevant for the static differences between language systems, but also for the dynamic interlanguage of language learners (Selinker 1972). This study investigates the nature of the abovementioned difficulties and attempts to place the accessibility hierarchy subsequently in the context of second language acquisition by analysing several types of data stemming from Danish students studying English Business Communication. Essays and summaries in English, translations from Danish into English and vice versa, as well as gap-filling tests and tests concerning the construction of relative clauses by merging independent clauses both in English and Danish are analysed.

An ERP Study in English Relative Clause Processing by Chinese-English Bilinguals

AbstractThe processing of relative clauses receives much concern from linguists. The finding that object relatives are easier to process than subject relatives in Chinese challenges the notion that subject relative clauses are preferred universally. A large body of literature provides theories related to sentence processing mechanisms for native speakers but leaves one area relatively untouched: how bilinguals process sentences. This study is designed to examine the case where the individuals with a Chinese L1 language background process subject-extracted subject relative clauses (SS) and subject-extracted object relative clauses (SO) by using eventrelated potentials (ERPs) to probe into the real-time language processing and presents a direct manifestation of brain activity. The findings from this study support the subject relative clause preference due to the strong influence of English relative clause markedness and bilinguals’ relative lower working memory capacity.

Information Structure of Relative Clauses in English: a Flexible and Computationally Tractable Model

Information Structure of Relative Clauses in English: a Flexible and Computationally Tractable Model

Processing Subject Relative Clauses in English: Evidence from Child Speakers of English-Lexified Creoles

The large-scale continuous migration of speakers from the Anglophone Caribbean to the United States over the past 2 decades has led to an influx of school children who are native speakers of English-lexified Creoles (ELCs). These are oral languages which do not generally occur in formal institutional domains requiring academic registers. Thus, ELCs do not depend as heavily on relative clauses as Standard English does in order to create compact and dense text. However, as children acquire Standard English in the educational system so comes the demand to acquire discourse that relies heavily on relative clauses. The study found that the creole continuum and serial verbs were associated with challenges that child speakers of ELCs exhibited as they processed subject relative clauses.

A Study on the Acquisition of English Relative Clauses by Korean Adult Learners through an Production Test

A Study on the Acquisition of English Relative Clauses by Korean Adult Learners through an Production Test

A Study on the Nexus and Meanings of Relative Clauses in English and Korean

A Study on the Nexus and Meanings of Relative Clauses in English and Korean

A preposition is something you can end a sentence with: Learning English stranded prepositions through structural priming

This study investigated whether second language (L2) learners of English could learn to produce stranded prepositions through structural priming. Structural priming is the tendency for speakers to repeat the structure of previously experienced sentences, without intention or conscious awareness of such behaviour, and is thought to be associated with implicit learning of syntactic structure. The syntactic structure chosen for this study was the stranded preposition in English relative clauses, a structure which is known to be difficult for L2 learners to acquire, and which is often replaced by a related ungrammatical interlanguage variant: null preposition (null prep). It was hypothesized that, during and just after a structural priming treatment, learners would produce more sentences containing stranded prepositions and fewer null prep sentences than before the treatment. The results revealed that learners indeed produced more stranded prepositions during and after priming than before and we interpret this behaviour as a possible indication of implicit learning of an L2 structure. However, learners did not produce significantly fewer null preps during and after priming than before. We discuss the findings in terms of second language acquisition theory, interlanguage processes, and possible pedagogical implications.

Predication and NP structure in an omnipredicative language: The case of Khoekhoe

We examine noun phrases and predication in Khoekhoe, a Central Khoisan language, arguing that members of all open word classes can function equally and without derivation as predicates, and that predicative use is primary and referential use is derived syntactically by relativization. We then present a formal HPSG analysis, in which members of all open word classes enter the syntax as predicates and in which all argument NPs are derived in a uniform manner as projections of pronominal elements, modified by relative clauses, building on Sag's (1997) analysis of English relative clauses. We will then argue that, additionally, DPs may project directly to clauses, yielding a second predication structure.

Impact of explicit instruction on EFL learners’ implicit and explicit knowledge: A case of English relative clauses

The present study sought to investigate the effect of explicit instruction (direct proactive explicit instruction) on the acquisition of English passive objective relative clauses. Two groups of participants were involved in the study; a group of advanced EFL learners (n = 16) and a group of intermediate EFL learners (n = 37) who were randomly divided to two groups of experimental (n = 22) and control (n = 15). The experimental group received 4 sessions of explicit instruction on the target structure. The control group, however, did their routine activities in a writing class. There were three test times, namely a pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests. Two separate measures of explicit and implicit knowledge were applied; an offline test of metalinguistic knowledge (an error correction task) and two online speeded tests of implicit knowledge (a self-paced-reading task and a stop-making sense task). The findings revealed a positive effect of explicit instruction for both implicit and explicit knowledge for the treatment group. Durable effects of explicit instruction were found based on the results obtained from the delayed post-test. The advanced group performed very closely to the treatment group, indicating the effect of explicit instruction in accelerating language learning, as well as the necessity of explicit instruction for some language forms to be acquired in EFL contexts. Keywords: Explicit/explicit instruction; implicit/explicit knowledge; online/offline tests; English reduced relative clauses

Avoidance in Processing English Non-restrictive Relative Clauses in Thai EFL Learners’ Interlanguage

This paper examined the acquisition of English non-restrictive relative clauses (NRCs) by L1 Thai learners, focusing on avoidance strategies applied in the learners’ interlanguage. The theoretical frameworks of the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH) and the Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis (PDH) were the main hypotheses predicting avoidance behavior employed by the learners. The research participants were 80 Thai EFL high school students of high and low proficiency levels. The data were elicited through a sentence combination task and a Thai-English translation task. The findings, overall, suggested that Thai EFL learners, by and large, avoided using the more marked NRC types in the NPAH. The learners’ avoidance was evident in the tasks from the shifting of more marked types to less marked ones. The findings also showed that the more advanced learners tended to employ more avoidance behavior with regard to the NPAH, which may be attributed to their greater exposure to the L2 rules and more knowledge of the differences between the L1 and L2 structures; this resulted in the use of alternative ways to complete the given tasks more easily. The center-embedded NRCs, more precisely, were found to be problematic for learners, which supports the prediction of the PDH that clauses embedded after the subject positions may interrupt the processing of a complex structure of RCs. The learners, therefore, avoided center embedding and changed it to right embedding with little awareness of the ungrammaticality of the NRC sentences.

Taiwanese EFL Learners’ English Relative Clauses Learning

Relative clause processing in Chinese is different from English. However, Chinese EFL learners face difficulty when they produce relative clauses. In order to help EFL learners be familiar with their writing skills and ease their anxiety, making a clear concept is necessary. Therefore, contrastive analysis (CA), a rule of a comparison between Chinese and English relative clauses is employed in this study. In the experiment, the treatment group had a positive evaluation of the contrastive analysis approach. Students felt that CA approach could really help them learn English clauses. They were willing to apply the method in the learning procedure. In addition, EFL learners also suggested that EFL teachers need to provide more illustrations and interpretations about the CA approach in the learning process.

Chinese EFL Learners’ Acquisition of English Relative Clauses

The study attempts to investigate Chinese English learners’ difficulty in the acquisition of English relative clauses (RCs). In addressing the objective, the present researcher employed two tests, sentence combination test and grammaticality judgment test, which were borrowed from Izumi (2003), to examine the learners’ knowledge of English RCs. 40 subjects participated in the study. In the sentence combination test, the subjects were instructed to combine two sentences together in a way so that relative clause would be formed. In the grammaticality judgment test, the subjects were supposed to judge the grammaticality of the given sentences and provide corrections for those they regard ungrammatical. Data obtained from the two tests reveal that RCs modifying object are much easier than those modifying subject. The study found full support for the Kuno’s (1974) PDH, which proposes that center-embedding is more difficult to acquire than right-embedding due to short term memory limitations. The other two hypotheses, Keenan and Comrie’s (1977) Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH), and Hamilton’s (1994) Subject-Object Hierarchy Hypothesis (SOHH) were not borne out.