Memory versus Expectation: Processing Relative Clauses in a Flexible Word Order Language

Autor/inn/en	Ronai, Eszter; Xiang, Ming
Titel	Memory versus Expectation: Processing Relative Clauses in a Flexible Word Order Language
Quelle	In: Cognitive Science, 47 (2023) 1, (39 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0364-0213
DOI	10.1111/cogs.13227
Schlagwörter	Memory; Expectation; Language Processing; Syntax; Hungarian; Word Order; Verbs; Foreign Countries; Grammar; Probability; Hungary + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Gedächtnis; Expectancy; Erwartung; Sprachverarbeitung; Ungar; Ungarisch; Wortfolge; Ausland; Grammatik; Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung; Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie; Ungarn
Abstract	Memory limitations and probabilistic expectations are two key factors that have been posited to play a role in the incremental processing of natural language. Relative clauses (RCs) have long served as a key proving ground for such theories of language processing. Across three self-paced reading experiments, we test the online comprehension of Hungarian subject- and object-extracted RCs (SRCs and ORCs, respectively). We capitalize on the syntactic properties of Hungarian that allow for a variety of word orders within RCs, which helps us to delineate the processing costs associated with memory demand and violated expectations. Results showed a processing cost at the RC verb for structures that have longer verb-argument distances, despite those structures being more frequent in the corpus. These findings thus support theories that attribute processing difficulty to memory limitations, rather than theories that attribute difficulty to less expected structures. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01