Lexicalized structural priming in second language online sentence comprehension

Abstract

Prior work has shown intriguing differences between first language (L1) and second language (L2) comprehension priming of relative clauses. We investigated English reduced relative clause priming in Chinese adult learners of English. Participants of different education levels read sentences in a self-paced, moving window paradigm. Critical sentences had a temporarily ambiguous reduced relative clause. Across lists, critical sentences were rotated, so that they occurred either as prime or as target, and had either the same or different verb as the critical sentence with which they were paired. Prime/target pairs were separated by several filler sentences, which never contained a relative clause. Mean reading times for the disambiguating region in the target sentences were faster than in the prime sentences, but only in the same-verb condition, not in the different-verb condition. This pattern of results is consistent with L1 comprehension priming research, suggesting that similar lexically specific mechanisms are involved in L1 and L2 comprehension priming of reduced relative clauses. These findings are in line with lexicalist accounts of sentence comprehension (e.g. MacDonald et al., 1994), according to which syntactic information is bound to specific words. In addition, these findings argue against theories that postulate fundamental differences in processing of L1 and L2 (e.g. Clahsen and Felser, 2006a, 2006b).

Lingering misinterpretation in native and nonnative sentence processing: Evidence from structural priming

“…The extent to which priming is lexically mediated in L2 processing is however debated. Some studies have shown lexically independent structural priming during comprehension (e.g., Nitschke et al, 2014;Wei et al, 2019), while others suggest lexically mediated structural priming (e.g., Wei et al, 2018). Thus, as also found in L1 studies of priming during comprehension discussed above, priming during comprehension in L2 speakers appears stronger in the presence of lexical overlap.…”

“…Furthermore, priming was found only in lexical overlap conditions (see also Wei et al, 2018), which suggests that priming during comprehension in L2 processing is strongly lexically mediated. Note that we did not find evidence that priming in the L2 is significantly more or less lexically mediated than in L1 processing.…”

“…Some studies have argued that lexical mediation in L2 priming is modulated by proficiency, at least in production (e.g.,Kim & McDondough, 2008). Comprehension studies have not systematically examined this issue, althoughWei et al (2018) did not find significant effects of proficiency in their study. We tested whether proficiency influenced lexically-mediated priming in our L2 results, but did not find any significant interactions between proficiency and lexical overlap.…”

“…Note that we did not find evidence that priming in the L2 is significantly more or less lexically mediated than in L1 processing. The lexically mediated priming effect observed in L1 and L2 speakers may indicate that L1 and L2 grammatical information is bound to each lexical item, and that structural priming occurs or is facilitated as a result of a certain lexical item being accessed during sentence processing (Pickering & Branigan, 1998;Wei et al, 2018).…”

“…If L2 speakers have more difficulty erasing initial misinterpretations compared to L1 speakers during sentence processing, the difference in reading times for ambiguous target sentences preceded by an ambiguous compared to unambiguous prime sentence may be larger in L2 speakers than L1 speakers. Finally, whether L1 and L2 comprehension priming is lexically mediated is debated(Nitschke et al, 2014;Wei et al, 2018;2019). To investigate this issue, we also manipulated the degree of lexical overlap between prime and target sentences.…”