TY - GEN A1 - Radford, Andrew A1 - Felser, Claudia A1 - Boxell, Oliver T1 - Preposition copying and pruning in present-day English T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - This article investigates the nature of preposition copying and preposition pruning structures in present-day English. We begin by illustrating the two phenomena and consider how they might be accounted for in syntactic terms, and go on to explore the possibility that preposition copying and pruning arise for processing reasons. We then report on two acceptability judgement experiments examining the extent to which native speakers of English are sensitive to these types of 'error' in language comprehension. Our results indicate that preposition copying creates redundancy rather than ungrammaticality, whereas preposition pruning creates processing problems for comprehenders that may render it unacceptable in timed (but not necessarily in untimed) judgement tasks. Our findings furthermore illustrate the usefulness of combining corpus studies and experimentally elicited data for gaining a clearer picture of usage and acceptability, and the potential benefits of examining syntactic phenomena from both a theoretical and a processing perspective. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 527 KW - syntactic blends Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-414898 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 527 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Felser, Claudia A1 - Cunnings, Ian A1 - Batterham, Claire A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - The timing of island effects in nonnative sentence processing T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Using the eye-movement monitoring technique in two reading comprehension experiments, this study investigated the timing of constraints on wh-dependencies (so-called island constraints) in first- and second-language (L1 and L2) sentence processing. The results show that both L1 and L2 speakers of English are sensitive to extraction islands during processing, suggesting that memory storage limitations affect L1 and L2 comprehenders in essentially the same way. Furthermore, these results show that the timing of island effects in L1 compared to L2 sentence comprehension is affected differently by the type of cue (semantic fit versus filled gaps) signaling whether dependency formation is possible at a potential gap site. Even though L1 English speakers showed immediate sensitivity to filled gaps but not to lack of semantic fit, proficient German-speaking learners of English as a L2 showed the opposite sensitivity pattern. This indicates that initial wh-dependency formation in L2 processing is based on semantic feature matching rather than being structurally mediated as in L1 comprehension. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 526 KW - trace positions KW - empty categories KW - garden-paths KW - 2nd-language KW - grammar KW - dependencies KW - plausibility KW - constraints KW - english KW - comprehension Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-415179 SN - 1866-8364 EP - 526 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Radford, Andrew A1 - Felser, Claudia A1 - Boxell, Oliver T1 - Preposition copying and pruning in present-day English JF - English language and linguistics N2 - This article investigates the nature of preposition copying and preposition pruning structures in present-day English. We begin by illustrating the two phenomena and consider how they might be accounted for in syntactic terms, and go on to explore the possibility that preposition copying and pruning arise for processing reasons. We then report on two acceptability judgement experiments examining the extent to which native speakers of English are sensitive to these types of 'error' in language comprehension. Our results indicate that preposition copying creates redundancy rather than ungrammaticality, whereas preposition pruning creates processing problems for comprehenders that may render it unacceptable in timed (but not necessarily in untimed) judgement tasks. Our findings furthermore illustrate the usefulness of combining corpus studies and experimentally elicited data for gaining a clearer picture of usage and acceptability, and the potential benefits of examining syntactic phenomena from both a theoretical and a processing perspective. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674312000172 SN - 1360-6743 VL - 16 IS - 2 SP - 403 EP - 426 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Felser, Claudia A1 - Cunnings, Ian A1 - Batterham, Claire A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - The timing of Island effects in nonnative sentence processing JF - Studies in second language acquisition N2 - Using the eye-movement monitoring technique in two reading comprehension experiments, this study investigated the timing of constraints on wh-dependencies (so-called island constraints) in first- and second-language (L1 and L2) sentence processing. The results show that both L1 and L2 speakers of English are sensitive to extraction islands during processing, suggesting that memory storage limitations affect L1 and L2 comprehenders in essentially the same way. Furthermore, these results show that the timing of island effects in L1 compared to L2 sentence comprehension is affected differently by the type of cue (semantic fit versus filled gaps) signaling whether dependency formation is possible at a potential gap site. Even though L1 English speakers showed immediate sensitivity to filled gaps but not to lack of semantic fit, proficient German-speaking learners of English as a L2 showed the opposite sensitivity pattern. This indicates that initial wh-dependency formation in L2 processing is based on semantic feature matching rather than being structurally mediated as in L1 comprehension. KW - trace positions KW - empty categories KW - garden-paths KW - 2nd-language KW - grammar KW - dependencies KW - plausibility KW - constraints KW - english KW - comprehension Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263111000507 SN - 0272-2631 VL - 34 IS - 1 SP - 67 EP - 98 PB - Cambridge University Press CY - Cambridge ER -