Animacy affects the processing of subject–object ambiguities in the second language: Evidence from self-paced reading with German second language learners of Dutch

The results of a self-paced reading study with German second language (L2) learners of Dutch showed that noun animacy affected the learners’ on-line commitments when comprehending relative clauses in their L2. Earlier research has found that German L2 learners of Dutch do not show an on-line preference for subject–object word order in temporarily ambiguous relative clauses when no disambiguating material is available prior to the auxiliary verb. We investigated whether manipulating the animacy of the ambiguous noun phrases would push the learners to make an on-line commitment to either a subjector object-first analysis. Results showed they performed like Dutch native speakers in that their reading times reflected an interaction between topichood and animacy in the on-line assignment of grammatical roles. A number of recent studies have explored how second-language (L2) learners process morphosyntactic information in their nonnative language during on-line sentence processing (for two recent reviews, see Frenck-Mestre, 2005; Papadopoulou, 2005). The results from these studies are mixed, with L2 learners’ processing exhibiting varying degrees of similarity to that of native speakers depending on the morphosyntactic structure in question, specific task demands, and individual learner variables (e.g., Havik, Roberts, van Hout, Schreuder, & Haverkort, 2009; Hoover & Dwivedi, 1998; Hopp, 2006; Juffs, 2005). To account for many of these findings, Clahsen and Felser (2006) proposed the shallow structure hypothesis, © Cambridge University Press 2010 0142-7164/10 $15.00 Applied Psycholinguistics 31:4 672 Jackson & Roberts: Processing of subject–object ambiguities in the L2 suggesting that L2 learners may not incrementally build the structure of a sentence to the same syntactic detail as native speakers of a language, and that their processing is driven primarily by lexical–semantic and pragmatic information (see also Felser, Roberts, Marinis, & Gross, 2003; Papadopoulou & Clahsen, 2003). Studies have examined how L2 learners use verb–subcategorization information or plausibility constraints during on-line language comprehension (e.g., Dussias & Cramer, 2008; Dussias & Pinar, in press; Frenck-Mestre & Pynte, 1997; Juffs, 1998; Roberts & Felser, 2010; Williams, 2006; Williams, Möbius & Kim, 2001), but L2 sentence processing research has yet to consider how lexical–semantic information in the form of noun animacy may or may not interact with morphosyntactic information, such as word order, to build the argument structure of a sentence in real time. Given that argument structure rapidly influences language processing, and animacy plays a central role in many explanatory models of how different languages assign grammatical and thematic roles (e.g., Bornkessel & Schlesewsky, 2006; Primus, 1998), this factor is an important variable to consider with regard to L2 processing.1 The present study addresses this question by examining how L2 learners of Dutch with German as their first language (L1) process subject versus object relative clauses (RCs) when the animacy of the antecedent noun phrase (NP) and the RC-internal NP is manipulated. Furthermore, given that all verbal information appears at the end of the clause in Dutch RCs, the present study also explores the extent to which L2 learners will incrementally assign grammatical roles prior to encountering crucial lexical and morphosyntactic information provided by the lexical verb and its auxiliary. ACCESSING LEXICAL–SEMANTIC INFORMATION DURING L1 AND L2 PROCESSING Clahsen and Felser (2006) recently proposed that L2 learners rely heavily on lexical–semantic and pragmatic information during on-line processing. In the absence of such information, L2 learners may not make the same types of incremental structural commitments when they read temporarily ambiguous sentences, leading to fewer signs of on-line reanalysis. At the same time, many L1-based models of the human parsing mechanism also stress the importance of nonsyntactic information in early stages of processing (e.g., Cuetos & Mitchell, 1988; Hemforth, Konieczny & Scheepers, 2000; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994), and that lexical–semantic and plausibility information can impact the severity of reanalysis (e.g., Traxler & Pickering, 1996). Thus, in light of research that has shown that L2 learners, like native speakers, rapidly access and use lexical–semantic information during on-line processing, and such information can strongly influence syntactic analysis and reanalysis (Dussias & Pinar, in press; Juffs, 1998; Roberts & Felser, 2010; Williams, 2006; Williams et al., 2001), the following question is perhaps more important than whether L2 learners rely on lexical–semantic information during on-line processing: even in the presence of critical lexical–semantic cues, will L2 learners use nonsyntactic information in the same manner as native speakers to process L2 input incrementally and potentially recover from initial misparses? Applied Psycholinguistics 31:4 673 Jackson & Roberts: Processing of subject–object ambiguities in the L2 In a related vein, the majority of L2 sentence processing research that has found more nativelike processing strategies among L2 learners, especially with regard to their ability to predict upcoming arguments in a sentence, has looked at languages like English, Spanish, or French, in which the lexical verb appears early in the sentence (e.g., Dussias & Cramer, 2008; Frenck-Mestre & Pynte, 1997). However, as it relates to L2 learners’ ability to construct filler–gap relationships on-line (e.g., Dussias & Pinar, in press; Juffs, 2005; Williams, 2006; Williams et al., 2001), Clahsen and Felser (2006) point out that, even though on-line evidence favors an account in which L2 learners can posit gaps, such effects may stem from a verb-driven rather than a structure-based gap-filling strategy (see also Marinis, Roberts, Felser, & Clahsen, 2005). Studies that have examined how L2 learners process temporarily ambiguous input in verb-final constructions have shown that only at near-native speaker levels may L2 learners make early commitments, such as assigning grammatical or thematic roles, prior to encountering the lexical verb (cf. Havik et al., 2009; Hopp, 2006; Jackson, 2008). For example, Jackson (2008) found that English L2 learners of German exhibited processing difficulties while reading less preferred objectfirst temporarily ambiguous wh-questions when the lexical verb appeared prior to the disambiguating region (e.g., Welche Ingenieurin traf den Chemiker gestern Nachmittag im Café? “Which engineer met the chemist yesterday afternoon in the café?”), but not with similar sentences in the present perfect tense where the lexical verb appeared at the end of the sentence. This suggests that early access to the lexical verb can influence the strength of L2 learners’ commitment to a particular sentence interpretation, and thus the relative difficulty of reanalysis when later information disambiguates the sentence to a less preferred structure. This is in contrast to a large body of L1 sentence processing research suggesting that native speakers of verb-final languages incrementally interpret sentences and assign grammatical and thematic roles independently of the lexical verb (e.g., Frazier, 1987; Frazier & Flores d’Arcais, 1989; Friederici & Frisch, 2000; Konieczny, Hemforth, Scheepers, & Strube, 1997). Additional evidence that L2 learners may not always commit to a particular interpretation when reading temporarily ambiguous sentences comes from a study conducted by Havik et al. (2009). The authors investigated whether German L2 learners of Dutch would show an on-line preference for subject-first word order when reading temporarily ambiguous subjectand object-RC constructions, which are illustrated in Example 1, as native speakers of both German and Dutch do (e.g., Kaan, 1997; Schriefers, Friederici, & Kühn, 1995). 1. Daar is de machinist die de conducteurs heeft/hebben bevrijd uit het brandende treinstel. There is the train-driverSG who the conductorsPL hasSG/havePL freed from the burning train-carriage. “There is the train driver who has freed the conductors/who the conductors have freed from the burning train carriage.” Only the native Dutch group found the less preferred object-resolved RCs more difficult to process: the L2 learners had no such on-line processing difficulty with Applied Psycholinguistics 31:4 674 Jackson & Roberts: Processing of subject–object ambiguities in the L2 object RCs, even though off-line, they displayed a preference for subject-resolved items, like the native speakers. This suggests that in the absence of biasing lexical– semantic information prior to syntactic disambiguation, the L2 learners did not make an on-line commitment to an analysis, even though the constructions under investigation are maximally comparable between the L1 and the L2 (see also Felser et al., 2003; Papadopoulou & Clahsen, 2003). Although the studies reported here, along with other L1 sentence-processing research, point to a subject preference in both Dutch and German (e.g., Frazier, 1987; Frazier & Flores d’ Arcais, 1989; Gorell, 2000; Kaan, 1997; Schriefers et al.,1995), recent work by Mak, Vonk, and Schriefers (2002, 2006) suggests that this subject-first preference in Dutch is modulated by noun animacy. When participants in Mak et al. (2006) read subject RCs (SubjRC) and object RCs (ObjRC) containing either an animate subject or an inanimate subject, like Examples 2–5, their reading times were longer at the past participle and subsequent segments (italicized below) on object RCs containing an inanimate subject, like Example 5, compared to subject RCs containing an inanimate subject, like Example 4. In contrast, there were no significant differences in reading times according to word order for sentences containing an animate subject, such as Examples 2 and 3. 2. In het dorp zijn de wandelaars, die de rots weggerold hebben, het gesprek van de dag. (SubjRC, animate subject) In the town are the hikersPL that the rockSG rolled-away havePL the talk of the day “In the town the hikers, that have rolled away the rock, are the talk of the day.” 3. In het dorp is de rots, die de wandelaars weggerold hebben, het gesprek van de dag. (ObjRC, animate subject) In the town is the rockSG that the hikersPL rolled-away havePL the talk of the day “In the town the rock, that the hikers have rolled away, is the talk of the day.” 4. In het dorp is de rots, die de wandelaars verpletterd heeft, het gesprek van de dag. (SubjRC, inanimate subject) In the town is the rock that the hikersPL crushed hasSG the talk of the day “In the town the rock, that has crushed the hikers, is the talk of the day.” 5. In het dorp zijn de wandelaars, die de rots verpletterd heeft, het gesprek van de dag. (ObjRC, inanimate subject) In the town are the hikersPL that the rockSG crushed hasSG the talk of the