Abstract
From an off-line experiment that controlled the level of embedding, the present study obtained the following results about the grammaticality judgments of Japanese learners of English with respect to subject-/object-extraction in different depths of embedding. 1)Japanese learners of English are less confident and less accurate in their grammatical judgments of cumulatively embedded sentences in both subject and object extractions. 2)They are more confident and more accurate in their grammatical judgments of object-extraction than subject-extraction in the cumulatively embedded sentences. 3)They tend to be more confident and more accurate in their grammatical judgments of subject-extraction in all three levels of embedded sentences without That-complementizers, while in object-extractions of the sentences with That-complementizers they are more confident and more accurate in the two- and three-clause embedded sentences but less confident and less accurate in the four-clause embedded sentences. These results were basically in line with Schachter & Yip's(1990) experimental results with Chinese and Korean speakers and proved that more deeply embedded sentences are harder for Japanese learners to comprehend. Our subjects showed a preference for object-extraction.
