Non-Target Processing and Response Patterns Attest to Cross-Linguistic Differences in Structural Analysis

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Cross-linguistic Studies

Background:

• Relative clauses are complex syntactic structures.
• Understanding how humans process them is key to linguistic theory.
• Cross-linguistic variation offers insights into universal and language-specific processing mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate eye movement patterns during the processing of subject relative clauses (SRC) and object relative clauses (ORC) in German, French, and Russian.
• To examine cross-linguistic differences in non-target processing, specifically involving syntactic competitors and embedded NPs.
• To explore the role of morphological cues, such as case marking, in sentence structure building and processing.

Main Methods:

• Eye-tracking methodology was employed to monitor participants' visual attention during auditory presentation of sentences.
• Participants processed SRCs and ORCs with transitive verbs, with visual stimuli including target, syntactic competitor, and embedded NP referents.
• A verification task was used to assess comprehension and processing patterns.

Main Results:

• A consistent subject-object asymmetry was observed in looks towards the target across all three languages, supporting the subject advantage.
• Significant differences in fixation probabilities towards the embedded NP were found in German and Russian.
• In French, a dominant non-target response pattern involved increased looks towards the syntactic competitor.

Conclusions:

• The observed subject-object asymmetry aligns with prior research on the subject advantage in language processing.
• Cross-linguistic variations in processing object relative clauses, particularly in German and Russian, may reflect differing reliance on morphological cues for structure building.
• The processing patterns suggest that the use of case morphology influences the interpretation of complex sentences, especially when initial activation of the target is weak.