@article{ArslanFelser2017, author = {Arslan, Seckin and Felser, Claudia}, title = {Comprehension of wh-questions in Turkish-German bilinguals with aphasia}, series = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, volume = {32}, journal = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, number = {7}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Philadelphia}, issn = {0269-9206}, doi = {10.1080/02699206.2017.1416493}, pages = {640 -- 660}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The aim of our study was to examine the extent to which linguistic approaches to sentence comprehension deficits in aphasia can account for differential impairment patterns in the comprehension of wh-questions in bilingual persons with aphasia (PWA). We investigated the comprehension of subject and object wh-questions in both Turkish, a wh-in-situ language, and German, a wh-fronting language, in two bilingual PWA using a sentence-to-picture matching task. Both PWA showed differential impairment patterns in their two languages. SK, an early bilingual PWA, had particular difficulty comprehending subject which-questions in Turkish but performed normal across all conditions in German. CT, a late bilingual PWA, performed more poorly for object which-questions in German than in all other conditions, whilst in Turkish his accuracy was at chance level across all conditions. We conclude that the observed patterns of selective cross-linguistic impairments cannot solely be attributed either to difficulty with wh-movement or to problems with the integration of discourse-level information. Instead our results suggest that differences between our PWA's individual bilingualism profiles (e.g. onset of bilingualism, premorbid language dominance) considerably affected the nature and extent of their impairments.}, language = {en} } @article{DrummerFelser2018, author = {Drummer, Janna-Deborah and Felser, Claudia}, title = {Cataphoric pronoun resolution in native and non-native sentence comprehension}, series = {Journal of memory and language}, volume = {101}, journal = {Journal of memory and language}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0749-596X}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2018.04.001}, pages = {97 -- 113}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Encountering a cataphoric pronoun triggers a search for a suitable referent. Previous research indicates that this search is constrained by binding Condition C, which prohibits coreference between a cataphoric pronoun and a referential expression within its c-command domain. We report the results from a series of eye-movement monitoring and questionnaire experiments investigating cataphoric pronoun resolution in German. Given earlier findings suggesting that the application of structure-sensitive constraints on reference resolution may be delayed in non-native language processing, we tested both native and proficient non-native speakers of German. Our results show that cataphoric pronouns trigger an active search in both native and non-native comprehenders. Whilst both participant groups demonstrated awareness of Condition C in an offline task, we found Condition C effects to be restricted to later processing measures during online reading. This indicates that during natural reading, Condition C applies as a relatively late filter on potential coreference assignments.}, language = {en} } @article{FelserDrummer2022, author = {Felser, Claudia and Drummer, Janna-Deborah}, title = {Binding out of relative clauses in native and non-native sentence comprehension}, series = {Journal of psycholinguistic research}, volume = {51}, journal = {Journal of psycholinguistic research}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {0090-6905}, doi = {10.1007/s10936-022-09845-z}, pages = {763 -- 788}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Pronouns can sometimes covary with a non c-commanding quantifier phrase (QP). To obtain such 'telescoping' readings, a semantic representation must be computed in which the QP's semantic scope extends beyond its surface scope. Non-native speakers have been claimed to have more difficulty than native speakers deriving such non-isomorphic syntax-semantics mappings, but evidence from processing studies is scarce. We report the results from an eye-movement monitoring experiment and an offline questionnaire investigating whether native and non-native speakers of German can link personal pronouns to non c-commanding QPs inside relative clauses. Our results show that both participant groups were able to obtain telescoping readings offline, but only the native speakers showed evidence of forming telescoping dependencies during incremental parsing. During processing the non-native speakers focused on a discourse-prominent, non-quantified alternative antecedent instead. The observed group differences indicate that non-native comprehenders have more difficulty than native comprehenders computing scope-shifted representations in real time.}, language = {en} } @article{BoxellFelserCunnings2017, author = {Boxell, Oliver and Felser, Claudia and Cunnings, Ian}, title = {Antecedent contained deletions in native and non-native sentence processing}, series = {Linguistic approaches to bilingualism}, volume = {7}, journal = {Linguistic approaches to bilingualism}, number = {5}, publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Co.}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1879-9264}, doi = {10.1075/lab.15006.box}, pages = {554 -- 582}, year = {2017}, abstract = {We report the results from an eye-movement monitoring study investigating native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers' real-time processing of antecedent-contained deletion (ACD), a type of verb phrase ellipsis in which the ellipsis gap forms part of its own antecedent. The resulting interpretation problem is traditionally thought to be solved by quantifier raising, a covert scope-shifting operation that serves to remove the gap from within its antecedent. Our L2 group comprised advanced, native German-speaking L2 learners of English. The analysis of the eye-movement data showed that both L1 and L2 English speakers tried to recover the missing verb phrase after encountering the gap. Only the native speakers showed evidence of ellipsis resolution being affected by quantification, however. No effects of quantification following gap detection were found in the L2 group, by contrast, indicating that recovery of the elided material was accomplished independently from the object's quantificational status in this group.}, language = {en} } @article{ReifegersteHauerFelser2017, author = {Reifegerste, Jana and Hauer, Franziska and Felser, Claudia}, title = {Agreement processing and attraction errors in aging}, series = {Aging, neuropsychology, and cognition : a journal on normal and dysfunctional development}, volume = {24}, journal = {Aging, neuropsychology, and cognition : a journal on normal and dysfunctional development}, number = {6}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {1382-5585}, doi = {10.1080/13825585.2016.1251550}, pages = {672 -- 702}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Effects of aging on lexical processing are well attested, but the picture is less clear for grammatical processing. Where age differences emerge, these are usually ascribed to working-memory (WM) decline. Previous studies on the influence of WM on agreement computation have yielded inconclusive results, and work on aging and subject-verb agreement processing is lacking. In two experiments (Experiment 1: timed grammaticality judgment, Experiment 2: self-paced reading + WM test), we investigated older (OA) and younger (YA) adults' susceptibility to agreement attraction errors. We found longer reading latencies and judgment reaction times (RTs) for OAs. Further, OAs, particularly those with low WM scores, were more accepting of sentences with attraction errors than YAs. OAs showed longer reading latencies for ungrammatical sentences, again modulated by WM, than YAs. Our results indicate that OAs have greater difficulty blocking intervening nouns from interfering with the computation of agreement dependencies. WM can modulate this effect.}, language = {en} } @article{LagoHuvelleFelser2018, author = {Lago Huvelle, Maria Sol and Felser, Claudia}, title = {Agreement attraction in native and nonnative speakers of German}, series = {Applied psycholinguistics : psychological and linguistic studies across languages and learners}, volume = {39}, journal = {Applied psycholinguistics : psychological and linguistic studies across languages and learners}, number = {3}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {0142-7164}, doi = {10.1017/S0142716417000601}, pages = {619 -- 647}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Second language speakers often struggle to apply grammatical constraints such as subject-verb agreement. One hypothesis for this difficulty is that it results from problems suppressing syntactically unlicensed constituents in working memory. We investigated which properties of these constituents make them more likely to elicit errors: their grammatical distance to the subject head or their linear distance to the verb. We used double modifier constructions (e.g., the smell of the stables of the farmers), where the errors of native speakers are modulated by the linguistic relationships between the nouns in the subject phrase: second plural nouns, which are syntactically and semantically closer to the subject head, elicit more errors than third plural nouns, which are linearly closer to the verb (2nd-3rd-noun asymmetry). In order to dissociate between grammatical and linear distance, we compared embedded and coordinated modifiers, which were linearly identical but differed in grammatical distance. Using an attraction paradigm, we showed that German native speakers and proficient Russian speakers of German exhibited similar attraction rates and that their errors displayed a 2nd-3rd-noun asymmetry, which was more pronounced in embedded than in coordinated constructions. We suggest that both native and second language learners prioritize linguistic structure over linear distance in their agreement computations.}, language = {en} }