Structure-sensitive constraints in non-native sentence processing

ERPs reveal comparable syntactic sentence processing in native and non-native readers of English.

L2 syntactic processing has been primarily investigated in the context of syntactic anomaly detection, but only sparsely with syntactic ambiguity. In the field of event-related potentials (ERPs) syntactic anomaly detection and syntactic ambiguity resolution is linked to the P600. The current ERP experiment examined L2 syntactic processing in highly proficient L1 Spanish-L2 English readers who h...

Cues, constraints, and competition in sentence processing

Sentence Processing Among Native vs. Nonnative Speakers: Implications for Critical Period Hypothesis

The present study intended to investigate the processing behavior of 2 groups of L2 learners of English (high and mid in proficiency) and a group of English native speakers on English active and passive reduced relative clauses. Three sets of tasks, an offline task, and 2 online tasks were conducted. Results revealed that the high-proficiency group’s performance was the same as that of the nati...

Syntactic Constraints and Individual Differences in Native and Non-Native Processing of Wh-Movement

There is a debate as to whether second language (L2) learners show qualitatively similar processing profiles as native speakers or whether L2 learners are restricted in their ability to use syntactic information during online processing. In the realm of wh-dependency resolution, research has examined whether learners, similar to native speakers, attempt to resolve wh-dependencies in grammatical...

Sentence Processing and Linguistic Structure