Relative Clause and Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
James Stanlaw
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause

Prosodic phrasing of relative clauses with two possible antecedents in Spanish: A comparison of Spanish native speakers and L1 Basque bilingual speakers

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene de la Cruz-Pavía ◽  
Gorka Elordieta
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Basque Country ◽  
First Language ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Length Effect ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Production Study ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries

AbstractThe present production study investigates the prosodic phrasing characteristic of sentences containing a relative clause with two possible noun phrase antecedents [Noun Phrase 1 Noun Phrase 2 Relative Clause] in the variety of Spanish spoken in the Basque Country. It aims to establish the default prosodic phrasing of these structures, as well as whether differences are found in phrasing between native and non-native speakers. Additionally, it examines the effect on prosodic phrasing of constituent length and familiarity with the sentences (skimming the sentences prior to reading them aloud). To do that, the productions of 8 Spanish monolinguals, 8 first language (L1) Spanish/second language (L2) Basque bilinguals, and 8 L1Basque/L2Spanish bilinguals are examined. A default phrasing consisting of the prevalence of a prosodic break after NP2 ([NP1 NP2/RC]) is obtained, and differences are found between the prosodic contours of native and non-native speakers. Additionally, a constituent length effect is found, with a higher frequency of prosodic boundaries after NP2 as RC length increases, as predicted by Fodor’s Same Size Sister Constraint. Last, familiarity with the sentences was found to increase the frequency of occurrence of the default phrasing.

scholarly journals Las oraciones de relativo y la definitud de su antecedente expreso

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-77
Author(s):  
Janusz Pawlik
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Spanish Speaker ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Definite Reference

The paper is concerned with the (in)definite reference of a noun phrase which is the head of a relative clause in Spanish. Speaker and hearer do not share any knowledge of the referent on the basis of previous mention (anaphora) or situational uses. There is something about the relative clause which makes a first-mention definite article possible. We take an insight into the contents of the description conveyed by such relatives.

Cross-Structural Priming

2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maaike Loncke ◽  
Sébastien M. J. Van Laere ◽  
Timothy Desmet
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Target Sentence ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Syntactic Structures

In this paper we show that attachment height (high vs. low attachment) of a modifier to a complex noun phrase (CNP; e.g., “the servant of the actress”), can be primed between dissimilar syntactic structures. In a sentence completion experiment, we found that the attachment height of a prepositional phrase (PP) in the prime sentence primed the attachment height of a relative clause (RC) in the target sentence. This cross-structural priming effect cannot be explained in terms of the priming of specific phrase-structure rules or even sequences of specific phrase-structure rules ( Scheepers, 2003 ), because the attachment of a PP to a CNP is generated by a different phrase-structure rule than the attachment of an RC. However, the present data suggest that the location at which the RC is attached to the CNP is mentally represented, independent of the specific phrase-structure rule that is attached, or by extension, that the abstract hierarchical configuration of the full CNP and the attached RC is represented ( Desmet & Declercq, 2006 ). This is the first demonstration of a cross-structural priming effect that cannot be captured by phrase-structure rules.

The correspondence between sentence production and corpus frequencies in modifier attachment

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 879-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Desmet ◽  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
Constantijn De Baecke
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Attachment Preference ◽  
Attachment Sites ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Relative Clause Attachment

We examined the production of relative clauses in sentences with a complex noun phrase containing two possible attachment sites for the relative clause (e.g., “Someone shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony.”). On the basis of two corpus analyses and two sentence continuation tasks, we conclude that much research about this specific syntactic ambiguity has used complex noun phrases that are quite uncommon. These noun phrases involve the relationship between two humans and, at least in Dutch, induce a different attachment preference from noun phrases referring to non-human entities. We provide evidence that the use of this type of complex noun phrase may have distorted the conclusions about the processes underlying relative clause attachment. In addition, it is shown that, notwithstanding some notable differences between sentence production in the continuation task and in coherent text writing, there seems to be a remarkable correspondence between the attachment patterns obtained with both modes of production.

Testing the effect of an arbitrary subject pronoun on relative clause comprehension: a study with Hebrew-speaking children

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 959-980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yair HAENDLER ◽  
Flavia ADANI
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Specific Effect ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
Discourse Pragmatics

AbstractPrevious studies have found that Hebrew-speaking children accurately comprehend object relatives (OR) with an embedded non-referential arbitrary subject pronoun (ASP). The facilitation of ORs with embedded pronouns is expected both from a discourse-pragmatics perspective and within a syntax-based locality approach. However, the specific effect of ASP might also be driven by a mismatch in grammatical features between the head noun and the pronoun, or by its relatively undemanding referential properties. We tested these possibilities by comparing ORs whose embedded subject is either ASP, a referential pronoun, or a lexical noun phrase. In all conditions, grammatical features were controlled. In a referent-identification task, the matching features made ORs with embedded pronouns difficult for five-year-olds. Accuracy was particularly low when the embedded pronoun was referential. These results indicate that embedded pronouns do not facilitate ORs across the board, and that the referential properties of pronouns affect OR processing.

scholarly journals LOGICS FOR THE RELATIONAL SYLLOGISTIC

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 647-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAN PRATT-HARTMANN ◽  
LAWRENCE S. MOSS
Keyword(s):  
Computational Complexity ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Proof Systems ◽  
Reductio Ad Absurdum ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject

The Aristotelian syllogistic cannot account for the validity of certain inferences involving relational facts. In this paper, we investigate the prospects for providing a relational syllogistic. We identify several fragments based on (a) whether negation is permitted on all nouns, including those in the subject of a sentence; and (b) whether the subject noun phrase may contain a relative clause. The logics we present are extensions of the classical syllogistic, and we pay special attention to the question of whether reductio ad absurdum is needed. Thus our main goal is to derive results on the existence (or nonexistence) of syllogistic proof systems for relational fragments. We also determine the computational complexity of all our fragments.

Escape from the noun phrase

Diachronica ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patience Epps
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Northwest Amazon ◽  
Insight Into

This paper deals with the evolution of certain subordinating constructions in Hup, a Nadahup (Makú) language of the northwest Amazon. Internal reconstruction, informed by close resemblances among synchronically attested clause types, suggests that Hup’s headless relative clause has given rise to a converb construction, a subtype of adverbial in which a dedicated verb form modifies a main clause. This development provides new insight into the origins of converbs and sheds light on the crosslinguistically common resemblance between relative and adverbial constructions more generally. Additionally, the Hup converbal clause has itself developed a main clause function, and the subordinating morphology employed by the relative and converb constructions is associated with topicalization. The transitions undergone by these structures in Hup contribute to our understanding of the diachronic pathways that may be taken by clauses once they have attained syntactic complexity.

scholarly journals Internally-Headed Relative Clauses in Hakha Chin

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefon M Flego
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Embedded Clause

Hakha Chin, an underdocumented Tibeto-Burman language, is reported to have internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs), a typologically rare syntactic structure in which the head noun phrase surfaces within the relative clause itself. The current study provides new data and novel observations which bear on several outstanding questions about IHRCs in this language: 1) Relativization of locative and instrumental adjuncts in IHRCs is avoided. 2) Conflicting stem allomorph requirements of negation and relativization of non-subjects give rise to optionality in stem choice when the two are brought together in an IHRC. 3) To relativize an indirect object, an IHRC is either avoided altogether, or the noun phrase is fronted to the absolute left-most position in the embedded clause. 4) Relativization of NPs with a human referent in an IHRC exhibit relativizer gender agreement, which has not been previously reported for this clause type in Hakha Chin.

scholarly journals Pistas prosódicas en la desambiguación de oraciones de relativo: hablantes bilingües frente a estudiantes de L2

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-80
Author(s):  
Irene Checa-Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Silent Reading ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Bilingual Processing

<p class="AbstractText">This study investigates the preferences for attachment of a relative clause (RC) to a complex noun phrase (NP) of the type: NP1 of NP2, in Spanish-English bilinguals and advanced learners of Spanish. Spanish speakers show a moderate preference for attaching the RC to the first NP, while speakers of English prefer the second NP. Subjects were presented this construction in written (Experiment 1) and oral (Experiment 2) forms. Results show no group had a preference for either attachment in silent reading, Low Attachment was preferred with a pause after NP1 by learners, and High Attachment was preferred in the absence of any pause by bilinguals and learners. However, the learner group behaved distinctively in Experiment 2 in two ways: their reaction times were shorter, and their choice for the kind of RC attachment was more sensitive to the absence of a pause being more likely to choose Low Attachment, as English monolinguals. These results suggest that advanced learners are influenced by their L1 more heavily in oral comprehension than in reading, while bilinguals take longer for processing prosodic cues. Reasons for a slower bilingual processing are posited. Lastly, implications for prosody teaching are drawn from these results.</p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document