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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2010

CARRIE N. JACKSON  and
LEAH ROBERTS
CARRIE N. JACKSON*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
LEAH ROBERTS
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Carrie N. Jackson, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, 427 Burrowes Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail: cnj1@psu.edu
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Abstract

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 subject- or 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.

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Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 671 - 691
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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