TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jessen, Anna
A1  - Felser, Claudia
T1  - Reanalysing object gaps during non-native sentence processing
BT  - Evidence from ERPs
JF  - Second language research
N2  - The present study used event related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how native (L1) German-speaking second-language (L2) learners of English process sentences containing filler-gap dependencies such as Bill liked the house (women) that Bob built some ornaments for __ at his workplace. Using an experimental design which allowed us to dissociate filler integration from reanalysis effects, we found that fillers which were implausible as direct objects of the embedded verb (e.g. built the women) elicited similar brain responses (an N400) in L1 and L2 speakers when the verb was encountered. This confirms findings from behavioral and eye-movement studies indicating that both L1 and L2 speakers immediately try to integrate a filler with a potential lexical licensor. L1/L2 differences were observed when subsequent sentence material signaled that the direct-object analysis was in fact incorrect, however. We found reanalysis effects, in the shape of a P600 for sentences containing fillers that were plausible direct objects only for L2 speakers, but not for the L1 group. This supports previous findings suggesting that L2 comprehenders recover from an initially plausible first analysis less easily than L1 speakers.
KW  - English
KW  - ERPs
KW  - filler-gap dependency
KW  - L2 processing
KW  - reanalysis
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658317753030
SN  - 0267-6583
SN  - 1477-0326
VL  - 35
IS  - 2
SP  - 285
EP  - 299
PB  - Sage Publ.
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Clahsen, Harald
A1  - Jessen, Anna
T1  - Variability and its limits in bilingual word recognition
BT  - a morphological priming study
JF  - The mental lexicon
N2  - This study examines the processing of morphologically complex words focusing on how morphological (in addition to orthographic and semantic) factors affect bilingual word recognition. We report findings from a large experimental study with groups of bilingual (Turkish/German) speakers using the visual masked-priming technique. We found morphologically mediated effects on the response speed and the inter-individual variability within the bilingual participant group. We conclude that the grammar (qua morphological parsing) not only enhances speed of processing in bilingual language processing but also yields more uniform performance and thereby constrains variability within a group of otherwise heterogeneous individuals.
KW  - German
KW  - inflection
KW  - morphology
KW  - L2 processing
KW  - masked priming
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.20013.cla
SN  - 1871-1340
SN  - 1871-1375
VL  - 15
IS  - 2
SP  - 295
EP  - 329
PB  - John Benjamins Publishing Co.
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -