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

The current paper presents three experimental studies of relative clause processing in German, French and Russian. The participants' eye movements were tracked on the visual display while they listened to subject or object relative clauses (SRC vs. ORC) with transitive verbs. Three characters were shown on the display: the target (the referent of the relative clause head), the syntactic competitor (the referent of the relative clause head with the reverse semantic role) and the embedded noun phrase, or NP (the second argument of the verb). Subsequently, one of the characters was shown again, and the participants were asked to indicate whether it was the one designated by the relative clause. Eye movement patterns showed a clear subject-object asymmetry in all three languages, which is consistent with previous findings related to the subject advantage for languages under investigation. In addition to the looks towards the target, we closely examined two types of non-target processing and response patterns: involving the syntactic competitor and the embedded NP. In German and Russian, there was a significant difference in fixation probabilities towards the embedded NP character. In French, more looks to the syntactic competitor were the dominant non-target response pattern. We argue that the commitment to the embedded NP might be indicative of cross-linguistic differences in the reliability of morphological cues to structure building. We suggest that the processing pattern for ORCs is modulated by the use of case morphology as a late-occurring cue to structure building due to a weak initial activation of the target.