Processing Chinese relative clauses: evidence for the subject-relative advantage.

A general fact about language is that subject relative clauses are easier to process than object relative clauses. Recently, several self-paced reading studies have presented surprising evidence that object relatives in Chinese are easier to process than subject relatives. We carried out three self-paced reading experiments that attempted to replicate these results. Two of our three studies found a subject-relative preference, and the third study found an object-relative advantage. Using a random effects bayesian meta-analysis of fifteen studies (including our own), we show that the overall current evidence for the subject-relative advantage is quite strong (approximate posterior probability of a subject-relative advantage given the data: 78-80%). We argue that retrieval/integration based accounts would have difficulty explaining all three experimental results. These findings are important because they narrow the theoretical space by limiting the role of an important class of explanation-retrieval/integration cost-at least for relative clause processing in Chinese

Analysis of Gibson and Wu data.

<p>Analysis of Gibson and Wu data using negative reciprocal reading times and maximal models. A negative sign on the estimated coefficient is an object relative advantage.</p

Data Analysis: Experiment 3.

<p>Analysis of our Experiment 3 data using negative reciprocal reading times and maximal models. A negative sign on the estimated coefficient is an object relative advantage.</p

Summary of corpus search.

<p>A partition of SR-like and OR-like strings by NP-animacy. The numbers in bold are bona fide RCs. The other patterns are discussed in the text.</p

Data Analysis: Experiment 3 and Gibson and Wu data combined.

<p>The original Gibson and Wu data and Experiment 3 combined: The raw reading times at the five regions of interest in the relative clause types, with 95% confidence intervals.</p

Data Analysis: Experiment 2.

<p>Analysis of our Experiment 2 data using negative reciprocal reading times and maximal models. A negative sign on the estimated coefficient is an object relative advantage.</p

Experiment 1: The raw reading times at the five regions of interest in the relative clause types, with 95% confidence intervals.

<p>Experiment 1: The raw reading times at the five regions of interest in the relative clause types, with 95% confidence intervals.</p

Summary of previous reading studies on Chinese relative clauses.

<p>We show the estimated coefficient and estimated standard error from previous studies that we had access to; the estimated coefficients are sorted in increasing order; the sample size (number of participants); and the method used. SPR means self-paced reading, ET means eyetracking, and the Maze tasks in Qiao et al are described in their paper. A negative coefficient means an object relative advantage, and a positive coefficient a subject relative advantage. See main text for details.</p

Experiment 3: The raw reading times at the five regions of interest in the relative clause types, with 95% confidence intervals.

<p>Experiment 3: The raw reading times at the five regions of interest in the relative clause types, with 95% confidence intervals.</p

Experiment 3 and the original Gibson and Wu dataset combined: The raw reading times at the five regions of interest in the relative clause types, with 95% confidence intervals.

<p>Experiment 3 and the original Gibson and Wu dataset combined: The raw reading times at the five regions of interest in the relative clause types, with 95% confidence intervals.</p