The Timing of Filler-Gap Dependency Formation in Second Language Comprehension

Abstract

This study investigated at what point in a sentence native Japanese speakers begin to build long-distance dependencies while reading English relative clauses (RCs) by conducting two self-paced reading experiments. Experiment 1 revealed that Japanese learners of English construct long-distance dependency immediately after reading a verb by demonstrating “plausibility mismatch effects” at the verb site. On the contrary, Experiment 2 did not find evidence that they form a long-distance dependency before a verb, that is, no “transitivity mismatch effect.” On the basis of these results, this study proposes that Japanese learners of English initiate long-distance dependency formation immediately after encountering a verb, but it does not precede the appearance of a verb. This extends previous findings that it is difficult to generate predictions in the processing of non-native languages, to a structural processing level.