29.172, Diss: Russian; Psycholinguistics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Iya Khelm Price: ''Independent Sources of Relative Clause Processing Difficulty: Evidence from Russian''

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-172. Wed Jan 10 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.172, Diss: Russian; Psycholinguistics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Iya Khelm Price: ''Independent Sources of Relative Clause Processing Difficulty: Evidence from Russian''

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Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2018 14:27:07
From: Iya Price [iya.khelm at mavs.uta.edu]
Subject: Independent Sources of Relative Clause Processing Difficulty: Evidence from Russian

 
Institution: University of Texas at Arlington 
Program: PhD in Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2016 

Author: Iya Khelm Price

Dissertation Title: Independent Sources of Relative Clause Processing
Difficulty: Evidence from Russian 

Dissertation URL:  https://uta-ir.tdl.org/uta-ir/handle/10106/25924

Linguistic Field(s): Psycholinguistics
                     Syntax
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): Russian (rus)


Dissertation Director(s):
Jeffrey Witzel
Naoko Witzel
Joey Sabbagh

Dissertation Abstract:

This study investigates the influence of syntactic, semantic, and
frequency-of-occurrence information, as well as role of memory in the
comprehension of complex sentences. This was done by examining the processing
of Russian subject- and object-extracted relative clauses (SRCs and ORCs) that
had the same word order configuration, but different noun phrase (NP) types
(descriptive noun vs. pronoun) in the relative clause (RC). In both SRCs and
ORCs, this word order was such that an NP argument preceded the RC verb,
establishing equivalent linear distance between the modified noun and its
integrating verb. A corpus analysis and offline acceptability rating
experiment indicated different frequency profiles and preferences for this
word order depending on clause type (SRC vs. ORC) and embedded-clause NP type
(descriptive noun vs. pronoun). Reading patterns on these SRC/ORC sentences,
as well as on matched complement clause sentences, were examined using
self-paced reading (SPR) and eye tracking. In line with structural expectation
effects, both SPR and eye tracking revealed processing difficulty at the first
embedded-clause NP for clauses with dispreferred word orders. Also consistent
with these effects, the eye-tracking experiment revealed processing costs at
and after the relativizer in ORCs, which generally occur less frequently than
SRCs. Across experiments, there were also clear integration costs for RC
sentences at and after the RC verb, which were comparable for both SRCs and
ORCs when integration distance was held constant. Finally, late-stage
comprehension difficulty was found for nominal ORCs, but not for their
pronominal counterparts, suggesting that similarity-based interference also
influences RC processing – particularly for nominal ORCs, in which organizing
the thematic roles for NPs might be especially difficult. These findings are
taken to support a hybrid model of incremental processing difficulty in RC
sentences that posits core roles for structural expectations and memory-based
integration (e.g., Levy, Fedorenko, & Gibson, 2013; Staub, 2010).




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