In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics, School of Philology, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, May 23, 2009. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies [Institute Manoli Triantafillidi], 477-486.

1 2

1 1

Abstract

This paper investigates how L1 and L2 children process garden-path sentences, such as:

(1) While she was eating the pizza fell on the floor and (2) While she was sleeping the

pizza fell on the floor. Garden-path effects have been claimed to results from the parsers preference for the structurally simplest analysis. Garden-path effects do not arise with

intransitive verbs, such as in (2), because readers make use of subcategorisation

information of the verb. In English, Traxler (2002), using a self-paced reading task

showed that when punctuation was not present L1 English 8-to-12 year-old children are

garden-pathed. To date studies in the processing of garden-path sentences in Greek L1

children have failed to show garden-path effects (Papadopoulou & Tsimpli, 2005).

However, this study used the moving-window paradigm and involved reading.

Childrens developing literacy may have interfered in processing causing the lack of garden-path effects. The present study has used a self-paced listening task manipulating

argument structure. Given that intonation provides cues for clause boundaries,

Experiment 1 used flat intonation to eliminate those cues; Experiment 2 used natural

intonation to examine whether intonation cues reduce garden-path effects. 22 9;6-to-12;5

year-old Russian-Greek children and 22 9;0-to-12;1 monolingual Greek children took

part in the two experiments. Analyses of accuracy showed that L2 children were less

accurate than L1 children in both experiments. Natural prosody facilitated sentence

processing in L1 but not L2 children. In the absence of prosodic cues (Exp. 1) L1

children showed garden-path effects. L2 children, on the other hand, were not garden-

pathed. When natural intonation provided cues for sentence boundaries, there was no

garden-path effect for any of the groups. This shows that when tested in the auditory

modality, L2 children do not process garden-path sentences as L1 children; they are not

sensitive to subcategorisation information of the verb or to prosodic cues. The L2

childrens absence of sensitivity to these two features can lead to comprehension difficulties which may affect their school performance and overall educational

attainment.

1 Reading

2

1

(1) (2) . (1) (1) ().

(1) While she was eating the pizza fell on the floor ( /- ) (1) While she was eating, the pizza fell on the floor ( , )

(1) the pizza (eat) (Frazier & Fodor, 1978). (fall). . /- garden-path effect (late closure principle). (1). , (1), . (2) (2) :

(2) While she was sleeping the pizza fell on the floor. ( /- ) (2) While she was sleeping, the pizza fell on the floor. ( , )

(sleep), . . , , (Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Warren, Grenier, & Lee, 1992; Nagel, Shapiro, Tuller, & Nawy, 1996).

3

, . . . , Traxler (2002) (1) (2) 8 12 . . , . , . . .

, . , Papadopoulou & Tsimpli (2005) 10-11 . 4 . . . .

. . , (self-paced listening task) . 6 (Booth, Mac Whinney, & Harasaki, 2000; Felser, Marinis, & Clahsen, 2003). , . (Marslen-Wilson et al., 1992; Nagel et al., 1996). . 5

4

(Beach, Katz, & Skowronski, 1996; Wells, Peppe, & Goulandris, 2004), (Choi & Mazuka, 2003; Snedeker & Trueswell, 2003). .

(1: ) (1: , 2: ) . : 1 2 .

2 2.1

1 , (Stavrakaki & Tsimpli, 2000) , (, ).

(%)

()

1

10.5

(127)

27

(89%)

15

(89%)

17

(95%)

59

(91%)

- 2

11.1

(134)

24

(79%)

13

(79%)

16

(88%)

53

(81%)

1.

2 (on-line) . (t (40) = -2.049, p = .047), . 1 2 (t (40) = 3.973, p = .000), (t (40) = 3.237, p = .002) (t (40) = 3.536, p = .001).

2.2

88 : 8 -, 40 40 (fillers).

5

4 . . 2 : ( , ) (, ) 4 . (3)-(6).

(3) - (): / / / (4) - (): / / / (5) - () * / / / (6) - () / / /

5 5 , 2 . 1 , . 2 .

2.3

. . . E-Prime(Schneider, Eschmann, & Zuccolotto, 2002).

2.4

. ANOVA 2X2X2

: (1 , 2 ), (, ) (, ).

6

3 3.1 1 ( ):

( 1) 1 ( ).

1: ( ms) 1 : : / / / : / / / *: / / / : / / /

1 ( 3) ( 4). 3 (F1 (1, 19) = 7.512, p= .013, F2 (1, 6) = 7.417, p= .034), . - () (): t (19) = -2.470, p = .023, 1 . 2 3.

4, 1 (, ) (F1 (1, 19) = 6.397, p= .020, F2 (1, 6) = 4.984, p= .067). ( < : t (19) = 2.549, p = .020)

7

. 2 4 (F1 (1, 21) = 4.931, p= .038, F2 (1, 6) = 3.878, p= .096), 1 .

3.2 1:

1 , 1 2 . 1 2 -. 1 (Papadopoulou & Tsimpli, 2005) . 2 . . , (1) . (Traxler, 2002). (2) 1 . , .

3.3 2 ( ):

2 2 .

8

2: (ms) 2 : : / / / : / / / *: / / / : / / /

ANOVAs 2X2X2 2 . 1 ( 3) (F1 (1, 19) = 5.187, p= .035, F2 (1, 6) = 5.809, p= .053), . 2 .

3.4 2:

, . , 1.

3.5

2 .

9

1: 2:

% (SD) 1 2 1 2

MA 68 (23.0) 64 (30.1) 84 (16.2) 59 (24.1)

72 (24.9) 64 (16.0) 78 (18.3) 68 (16.8) * 91 (10.5) 77 (26.1) 87 (20.7) 80 (26.8) 76 (23.2) 72 (19.5) 83 (19.5) 66 (21.8)

2. .

ANOVAs 2X2X22 (, ), (, ), (1 , 2) ( , ) (F1 (1, 40) = 3.768, p= .059, F2 (1, 12) = 5.829, p= .033). 1 2 (F1 (1, 19) = 6.771, p= .018, F2 (1, 6) = 5.938, p= .051) 2 .

4

, (1) (2) . , 2 1 1 . . 1 . (Papadopoulou & Tsimpli, 2005), . . - , . .

2 , , -

10

, / . 2 . , - .

2 , . 1 ( 4). 2 1 2 . 1, 2 .

1 9-12 2 . 2 9-12 -. . 2 , .

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11

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