Off-line and On-line Child Comprehension of Object ...

Off-line and On-line Child Comprehension of Object Relative Clauses with Demonstrative and Personal Pronouns Yair Haendler & Flavia Adani University of Potsdam – Linguistics Department

DGfS 2014 Experimental and theoretical approaches to relative clauses reconciled Philipps-Universität Marburg March 5th-7th 2014

Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi (2009): A Relativized Minimality account to RC comprehension OR+2DP Show me the lion that the chicken is wetting __ X Z Y

OR+pro Tare li et ha-arie shemartivim oto Show me ACC the-lion that- pro are wetting him __ X Z Y

(Hebrew)

pro is not lexically restricted → no intervention effect → child comprehension is OK.

Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi (2009): A Relativized Minimality account to RC comprehension General prediction for OR with a lexically restricted DP head and a pronominal embedded subject: (A) ... NP relative-pronoun NP verb ...

→ hard

(B) ... NP relative-pronoun Pronoun verb ... → easy (C) ... Pronoun relative-pronoun NP verb ... → easy

Evidence from previous studies (A) … NP relative-pronoun NP verb …

→ hard

(B) … NP relative-pronoun Pronoun verb ... → easy - The prediction regarding (B) vs. (A) is supported by previous studies. (children: Friedmann et al., 2009; Arnon, 2010; Brandt et al., 2009; Kidd et al., 2007; adults: Gordon et al., 2001; Warren & Gibson, 2002; 2005)

- Each study tested one pronoun type (except for Warren & Gibson 2002). - Studies with children used only off-line measures, an arguably more taxing modality for children (Brandt-Kobele & Höhle, 2010).

The present study – Motivation

- We looked at several pronoun types within the same experimental design. - We collected both an off-line measure (accuracy) and an on-line measure (eye-tracking) within the same experiment.

Participants Adults N=28; age range 19-39; mean age=25

Children N=45; age range 5;0-5;11; mean age=5;5

The Task - Visual setup based on Adani & Fritzsche (2013) - Color naming task (Arnon, 2010)

E.g.:

Welche Farbe hat der Hase, den das Pferd jagt? what

color has the bunny, that the horse chases?

Animated videos; 2 verbs – jagen ('chase'), kitzeln ('tickle')

Material – Conditions [1] OR+2DP (7 items) Welche Farbe hat der Hase, den das Pferd jagt? what color has the bunny that the horse chases?

[2] OR+1pro (7 items) Welche Farbe hat der Hase, den ich jage? what color has the bunny that I chase?

[3] OR+3pro (7 items) Welche Farbe hat der Hase, den es jagt? what color has the bunny that it chases?

[4] OR+dem (7 items) Welche Farbe hat der, den das Pferd jagt? what color has that (the one) that the horse chases?

[5] Fillers (12 items) – Target animal was the “first in the row” Welche Farbe hat der Hase mit dem Hut? what color has the bunny with the hat?

Material – Conditions [1] OR+2DP [5] Filler Hier sind zwei Hasen. Der eine Hase ist gelb und der andere Hase ist grün. Und hier ist ihr Freund, das Pferd. Das Pferd ist lila. Guck mal! Welche Farbe hat der Hase, den das Pferd jagt? (OR+2DP) Welche Frabe hat der Hase mit dem Hut? (Filler) Here are two bunnies. One bunny is yellow and the other bunny is green. And here is their friend, the horse. The horse is purple. Look! What color is the bunny that the horse is chasing? (OR+2DP) What color is the bunny with the hat? (Filler)

Material – Conditions [2] OR+1pro

Hier sind meine zwei Freunde, die Löwen. Der eine Löwe ist pink und der andere Löwer ist grün. Und ich bin auch da. Hier bin ich gelb. Guck mal! Welche Farbe hat der Löwe, den ich jage? Here are my two friends, the lions. One lion is pink and the other lion is green. And I am here as well. Here I am yellow. Look! What color is the lion that I am chasing?

Material – Conditions [3] OR+3pro

Hier sind zwei Bären. Der eine Bär ist gelb und der andere Bär ist blau. Und hier ist ihre Freundin, die Ente. Die ENTE ist pink. Guck mal! Welche Farbe hat der Bär, den sie kitzelt? Here are two bears. One bear is yellow and the other bear is blue. And here is their friend, the duck. The DUCK is pink. Look! What color is the bear that it is tickling?

Material – Conditions [4] OR+dem

Hier ist ein gelbes Pferd. Und hier sind seine zwei Freunde, die Hasen. Der EINE Hase ist lila, und der ANDERE Hase ist rot. Guck mal! Welche Farbe hat der, den das Pferd kitzelt? Here is a yellow horse. And here are its two friends, the bunnies. ONE bunny is purple, and the OTHER bunny is red. Look! What color is the one that the horse is tickling?

Results - Accuracy Adults: ceiling performance on all conditions. Children: Condition (proportion correct (SE)) OR+2DP

OR+dem

OR+3pro

OR+1pro

0.46 (0.02)

0.42 (0.02)

0.44 (0.02)

0.98 (0.04)

= chance level (t=-1.48, p=.15)

= chance level (t=-1.29, p=.2)

= chance level (0.5) (t=-.83, p=.41)

> chance level (t=-47.27, p OR+2DP = OR+3pro = OR+dem (online & off-line) * OR+2DP > OR+3pro = OR+dem ('>' means 'earlier target looks')

(only on-line)

Discussion - Patterns that require an explanation: (1) first-person pronoun > full DP (2) first-person pronoun > third-person pronoun & demonstrative pronoun (3) full DP > third-person pronoun & demonstrative pronoun

Discussion OR+2DP: “Which color is the bunny that the horse is chasing?”

Speaker

Hearer

“The horse”

/horse/

Direct access to discourse referent

(Discourse Representation Theory, Heim 1982; F-Structure Theory, Erteschik-Shir 1997)

Discussion OR+1pro: “Which color is the bunny that I am chasing?”

Speaker

Hearer /speaker/

“I”

Direct access to discourse referent

(Discourse Representation Theory, Heim 1982; F-Structure Theory, Erteschik-Shir 1997)

Discussion OR+3pro: “Which color is the bunny that it is chasing?” CONTEXT

Speaker

the horsei “iti”

pronoun resolution

Indirect access to discourse referent

(Discourse Representation Theory, Heim 1982; F-Structure Theory, Erteschik-Shir 1997)

Hearer /horse/

Discussion OR+dem: “Which color is the one that the horse is chasing?”

Speaker “the onei”

CONTEXT the bunnyi pronoun resolution

Indirect access to discourse referent

(Discourse Representation Theory, Heim 1982; F-Structure Theory, Erteschik-Shir 1997)

Hearer /bunny/

Discussion Direct access to discourse referent - 1st person pronoun - full DPs

Indirect access to discourse referent

>

- 3rd person pronoun - demonstrative pronoun

- Elements from the “indirect access” category are more costly in terms of processing. (1st person vs. 3rd person pronoun: Carminati, 2005; Warrren & Gibson, 2002)

- Arbitrary pro subject might behave like the “direct access” category.

Discussion - Patterns that require an explanation: (1) first-person pronoun > full DP (2) first-person pronoun > third-person pronoun & demonstrative pronoun (3) full DP > third-person pronoun & demonstrative pronoun - What makes ORs with 1st person pronoun easier than ORs with two full DPs?

Discussion - Patterns that require an explanation: (1) first-person pronoun > full DP (2) first-person pronoun > third-person pronoun & demonstrative pronoun (3) full DP > third-person pronoun & demonstrative pronoun - What makes ORs with 1st person pronoun easier than ORs with two full DPs? * Lexical restriction (Friedmann et al., 2009; e.g., Arnon, 2010; Gordon et al., 2001)

Discussion Indirect access to discourse referent

Direct access to discourse referent

- 3rd person pronoun - demonstrative pronoun

Intervention effect

No intervention effect

> 1st person pronoun

>

Full DP

Conclusion - Locality intervention, defined in terms of lexical restriction, appears not to be sufficient in explaining child performance on ORs with different pronoun types. - Direct/Indirect access to discourse referents plays a central role in determining OR comprehension and processing. (based on the constituents involved, e.g., full DPs; 1 st person, 3rd person or demonstrative pronouns)

- Lexical restriction determines further patterns in comprehension and processing of ORs. (E.g., between 1st person pronoun and full DPs)

Thank you!

We thank: - Reinhold Kliegl - Tom Frietzsche - Isabell Keßlau - Julia Billerbeck - Maja Stegenwallner-Schütz - Romy Lassotta - Anne Adelt

www.uni-potsdam.de/aladdin/en