Processing Complex Sentences: A Cross-linguistic Study

Abstract

The Competition Model is an interactive-activation framework for the study of sentence processing that is designed to handle quantitative as well as qualitative variations in performance across natural languages. Previous studies within this framework have shown that adult listeners base their interpretation of simple sentences on the most valid and reliable cues in their language (e.g. more use of word order in English and more use of subject verb agreement in Italian). Critics have argued that such effects may reflect heuristics that are only applied to simple sentences. The present study shows that these cross-linguistic differences are maintained when participants are asked to interpret complex sentences with an embedded relative clause. A comparison of “off-line” (untimed) and "on-line" (timed) versions of the same experiments shows that these effects hold up under time pressure. The on-line versions also provide new information about cross-linguistic differences in timing and demands on processing. In particular, the processing costs associated with centre embedding and non-canonical order are greater in English, which may be the price that English listeners have to pay for heavy reliance on word order information.