Relative Clause Attachment in Native and L2 Arabic
| Dublin Core | PKP Metadata Items | Metadata for this Document | |
| 1. | Title | Title of document | Relative Clause Attachment in Native and L2 Arabic |
| 2. | Creator | Author's name, affiliation, country | Abdelaadim Bidaoui; Ball State University USA |
| 2. | Creator | Author's name, affiliation, country | Rebecca Foote; University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA |
| 2. | Creator | Author's name, affiliation, country | Mahmoud Abunasser; Oracle USA |
| 3. | Subject | Discipline(s) | |
| 3. | Subject | Keyword(s) | L2 Arabic, sentence processing, relative clause attachment preferences, Shallow Structure Hypothesis |
| 4. | Description | Abstract | Previous studies indicate that there is cross-linguistic variation in relative clause attachment, hypothesized to be due to language-specific structural characteristics (Gibson et al.: 1996). However, research documenting these differences has been carried out on Indo-European languages. The first goal of this study is to investigate relative clause attachment preferences in native speakers of Arabic, a Semitic language in which there are no published data on relative clause attachment preferences. The second goal is to investigate relative clause attachment preferences in second language (L2) learners of Arabic. Some research indicates that L2 learners fail to show any clear attachment preferences in their second language, which has been hypothesized to be due to their inability to apply the phrase-structure based parsing principles (Clahsen & Felser: 2006a) that native speakers employ. We therefore ask whether learners of Arabic will show a relative clause attachment preference, and if so, whether it will be the same preference shown by native speakers. In order to answer these questions, sixteen native speakers of Arabic and sixteen late L1 English learners of L2 Arabic participated in one online task (self-paced reading) and one offline task (attachment preference ). Data were analyzed via ANOVAs and t-tests. Analyses indicated that both native speakers and L2 learners showed a preference for high attachment of relative clauses in the offline preference task, but only the L2 learners showed the same preference in the online task. This study adds to our knowledge of sentence processing in both native and L2 Arabic, an understudied language in which relatively little research exists on either population. The findings of this study support structurally-based accounts of relative clause attachment preferences. They also provide evidence against the claim that L2 learners do not use native-like parsing principles in sentence comprehension. |
| 5. | Publisher | Organizing agency, location | |
| 6. | Contributor | Sponsor(s) | |
| 7. | Date | (YYYY-MM-DD) | 23-02-2018 |
| 8. | Type | Status & genre | Peer-reviewed Article |
| 8. | Type | Type | |
| 9. | Format | File format | |
| 10. | Identifier | Uniform Resource Identifier | https://revues.imist.ma/index.php/IJAL/article/view/11564 |
| 11. | Source | Title; vol., no. (year) | International Journal of Arabic Linguistics; Vol 2, No 2 (2016) |
| 12. | Language | English=en | |
| 13. | Relation | Supp. Files | |
| 14. | Coverage | Geo-spatial location, chronological period, research sample (gender, age, etc.) | |
| 15. | Rights | Copyright and permissions |
Copyright (c) 2018 International Journal of Arabic Linguistics |