Subject relative clauses are not universally easier to process: Evidence from Basque |
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| Authors: | Manuel Carreiras Jon Andoni Duñabeitia Marta Vergara Irene de la Cruz-Pavía Itziar Laka |
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| Institution: | 1. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain;2. IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain;3. Departamento de Filología Vasca, Universidad del País Vasco (UPV-EHU), Spain;4. University of California at Davis, CA, USA;5. Departamento de Lingüística y Estudios Vascos, Universidad del País Vasco (UPV-EHU), Spain;1. Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA;2. Center for Advanced Study of Language, MD, USA;3. Department of Linguistics, Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, University of Maryland, USA;1. Department of General Linguistics, University of Tuebingen, Germany;2. Institute for Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Tuebingen, Germany;1. BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain;2. Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain;3. Université de Lyon, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Laboratoire d''Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs, Lyon, France;4. Universidad Nebrija, Facultad de Lenguas y Educación, Madrid, Spain;1. NeuroCognition Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, United States;2. Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Bldg. 149, 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, United States;1. Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Grueneburgweg 14, 60322 Frankfurt, Germany;2. Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany;3. Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany;4. University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany;5. University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia;1. Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA;2. Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA |
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| Abstract: | Studies from many languages consistently report that subject relative clauses (SR) are easier to process than object relatives (OR). However, Hsiao and Gibson (2003) report an OR preference for Chinese, a finding that has been contested. Here we report faster OR versus SR processing in Basque, an ergative, head-final language with pre-nominal relative clauses. A self-paced reading task was used in Experiments 1 and 2, while ERPs were recorded in Experiment 3. We used relative clauses that were ambiguous between an object or subject-gap interpretation and disambiguated later in the sentence. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that SR took longer to read than OR in the critical disambiguating region. In addition, Experiment 3 showed that SR produced larger amplitudes than OR in the P600 window immediately after reading the critical disambiguating word. Our results suggest that SR are not universally easier to process. They cast doubts on universal hypotheses and suggest that processing complexity may depend on language-specific aspects of grammar. |
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