Features matter: the role of number and gender features during the online processing of subject- and object- relative clauses in Italian

In this study, we investigated whether different morphosyntactic features, i.e. number and gender, play a role during the adult online comprehension of subject relative clauses (SRC) object (ORC), in Italian. This study was inspired by developmental studies showing that children struggle with ORC compared to SRC; yet, improves if head RC mismatch relevant features (e.g. but not gender Italian, based on featural Relativized Minimality principle, fRM). We found Italian adults read more slowly than SRC verbs; moreover, verbs were faster head-subject condition, while there no facilitation line fRM. conclude parsing is feature-sensitive, are all equally “relevant”, current models should be refined account for these differences.