Cross-linguistic influence in processing English relative clauses by Farsi and Dutch speakers

Abstract

In an eye-tracking sentence-reading experiment, we explored whether there is a cross-linguistic influence of L1 Farsi and L1 Dutch on the processing of L2 English subject and object relative clauses (SRCs & ORCs). Both Farsi and Dutch are verb-final in the relative clause, which means that SRCs and ORCs cannot be distinguished based on the surface structure of the clause (NP NP V in both cases). In contrast, English relative clauses follow an NP V NP-structure in SRCs, while ORCs follow an NP NP V-pattern, making the two structurally distinct. The difference between Dutch and Farsi is that Farsi has an object marker, which disambiguates the relative clauses. We tested the processing of SRCs and ORCs. Both the Farsi and the Dutch participants showed signs of crosslinguistic transfer, in that their processing patterns differed from previously reported L1 English patterns. Both groups showed increased processing times on the NP following the V in subject relative clauses. However, the data from the Dutch speakers were overall more in line with those of English speakers, whereas Farsi speakers had difficulty distinguishing between the two types of relative clause when there was no morphological cue. The results suggest that the L1 Farsi speakers had not acquired the skill to use the word order cue in English relative clauses to disambiguate the clauses. A possible explanation for the difference between the groups is that the L1 Dutch speakers were more experienced and have been exposed to English more than the L1 Farsi speakers.