Relative Clause Attachment in Chinese 汉语定语从句的附着

Relative Clause Attachment in Chinese汉语定语从句的附着 Cai Zhenguang （蔡振光） Guangdong Univ. of Foreign Studies 广东外语外贸大学英文学院/语言学及应用语言学研究中心

Contents • Cross-linguistic variation in RC attachment • RC attachment in pre-head RC languages • Two empirical studies • Conclusion

RC attachment • Someone shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony.

RC attachment • Low attachment preferred (e.g., Frazier, 1987: late closure; Gibson, 1991: recency) • Cross-linguistic difference: • Low attachment: Arabic, English, Danish… • High attachment: Dutch, French, German…

Chinese 昨天晕倒的老板的秘书… Japanese 昨天晕倒老板no秘书 RC attachment in languages with pre-head RCs

Experiment 1 • To see whether there is online preference in RC attachment in Chinese.

A new method If low attachment, RC1 > RC2 If high attachment, RC1=RC2 • R1 (R2) R3 R4 R5 • RC1昨天晕倒的老板的夫人//就自己的病情//请教了//医生//。 • (high, ambiguous) • RC2昨天晕倒的//老板的夫人//就自己的病情//请教了//医生//。 • (high, control) • RC3昨天晕倒的老板的夫人//就丈夫的病情//请教了//医生//。 • (low, ambiguous) • RC4昨天晕倒的老板//的夫人//就丈夫的病情//请教了//医生//。 • (low, control) If low attachment, RC3 = RC4 If high attachment, RC3> RC4

Self-paced reading. • 80 native speakers of Chinese in the Daxuecheng community, paid. • Grammaticality judgment. • 中国队昨天将回国。

Judgment accuracy • RC1 0.73 (high attachment, ambiguous) • RC2 0.76 (high attachment, unambiguous) • RC3 0.50 (low attachment, ambiguous) • RC4 0.57 (low attachment, unambiguous) • Attachment: p < .0001, high attachment sentences judged grammatical more often than low attachment sentences. • 昨天晕倒的老板的夫人就自己的病情… • 昨天晕倒的老板的夫人就丈夫的病情… • Ambiguity: p >.05 •  High attachment preferred.

RT results • R3: disambiguating area. • R4: first follow-up area. • R5: second follow-up area. • Task: RT for making judgments. • R1 (R2) R3 R4 R5 • 昨天晕倒的老板的夫人//就自己的病情//请教了//医生//。 • Task • 是否病句？

就自己请教了// 医生// 的病情// 是否病句？昨天晕倒的老板的夫人

就丈夫请教了// 医生// 的病情// 是否病句？昨天晕倒的老板的夫人

Summary • RCs in Chinese are attached high (contra Shen & Mitchell, n.d)

Experiment 2 • One accounts for the high attachment is the Implicit Prosody Hypothesis (Fodor, 1998), which argues that high attachment is the universal pattern of relative clause attachment. • The Implicit Prosody Hypothesis also predicts that length of the RC will affect the attachment. • The hardworking servant of the actress who cried. • The hardworking servant of the actress who cried all night yesterday.

Experiment 2 • One accounts for the high attachment is the Implicit Prosody Hypothesis (Fodor, 1998), which argues that high attachment is the universal pattern of relative clause attachment. • The Implicit Prosody Hypothesis also predicts that length of the RC will affect the attachment. • The hardworking servant of the actress who cried. • The hardworking servant of the actresswho cried all night yesterday.

Applied in Chinese, the hypothesis would predict that the length of the NPs will affect the attachment. • 昨天晕倒了的董事长的夫人 • 昨天晕倒了的蓝天公司董事长的夫人 • 昨天晕倒了的董事长的原配夫人陈湘

Applied in Chinese, the hypothesis would predict that the length of the NPs will affect the attachment. • 昨天晕倒了的董事长的夫人 • 昨天晕倒了的蓝天公司董事长的夫人 • 昨天晕倒了的董事长的原配夫人陈湘 • The RC tends to attach to a shorter NP.

Materials • Sentences were either disambiguated toward high attachment reading or low attachment reading. • a. 昨天晕倒了的董事长的夫人就自己/丈夫的病情请教了医生。(control length ) • b. 昨天晕倒了的蓝天公司董事长的夫人就自己/丈夫的病情请教了医生。 (longer NP1 ) • c. 昨天晕倒了的董事长的原配夫人陈湘就自己/丈夫的病情请教了医生。 (longer NP2 )

Methods • Same as in Exp 1.

Results (accuracy) • The following table shows the accuracy rates. No differences were observed among the sentence types in either high attachment or low attachment sentences.

Results (RTs) • We conducted analyses for high attachment sentences and low attachment sentences respectively.

longer NP2<control length (p=.069, item analysis) 就自己的病情请教了医生。是否病句？

ps>.05 就自己的病情请教了医生。是否病句？

longer NP2<control length (ps<=.05) 就自己的病情请教了医生。是否病句？

Summary for high attachment sentences • Results: longer NP2 RT < control length RT •  The RT tends to attach to the longer NP. • Next we look at low attachment sentences

longer NP1<control length longer NP1<longer NP2 (ps<.05) 就自己的病情请教了医生。是否病句？

Summary for low attachment sentences • Results: longer NP1 RT < control length RT • longer NP1 RT < longer NP2 RT •  The RT tends to attach to the longer NP. •  The results falsify the Implicit Prosody Hypothesis (attach to shorter NPs)

General discussion • Results • Preferentially attach high • The RC tend to attach to longer NPs. • Theoretical accounts • Perspective shift • The effect of length on perspective

Theoretical accounts: high attachment • Frazier & Clifton (1996): the RC tends to attach to a more prominent argument in the discourse (NP2). • Gibson et al. (1996): RC attachment is determined by recency and Predicate Proximity (attach the RC to an argument closer to the main predicate, i.e., NP2). • Problem: Chinese, unlike languages with RCs following the head, has the head after the RC. That means the RC does not have two possible attachment sites at the same moment. Instead, it has to be attached to NP1 and then re-attached to NP2.

Perspective shift is costly and is avoided is possible (MacWhinney & Pleh, 1988) • Low attachment: two perspectives • ((昨天晕倒的老板Perspective1)的夫人Perspective2)就… • High attachment: one perspective • (昨天晕倒的)(老板的)夫人Perspective)就…

Theoretical accounts: length effect • The RC tends to attach to a longer NP. • Although the Implicit Prosody Hypothesis gives correct prediction about the RC attachment in Chinese, it incorrectly predicts the length effect.

An account based on the perspective shift is that when an argument is lengthened, it takes more attentional resources and is more prominent than a shorter argument. • 昨天晕倒了的董事长的夫人 • 昨天晕倒了的蓝天公司董事长的夫人 • 昨天晕倒了的董事长的原配夫人陈湘

Thank you for your attention. • Comments are welcome. • geraldcai@163.com

Relative Clause Attachment in Chinese 汉语定语从句的附着