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.

NP

PP

NP P NP

… the servant of the actress who

Low attachment: The actress was on the balcony.

High attachment: The servant 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…

RC attachment in languages with pre-head RCs

Chinese 昨天晕倒的老板的秘书…

Japanese 昨天晕倒老板 no 秘书

NP

PossP

NP Poss NP

RC

昨天晕倒的老板的秘书

Low attachment

High attachment

Experiment 1

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

A new method

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, RC1 > RC2If high attachment, RC1=RC2

If low attachment, RC1 > RC2If high attachment, RC1=RC2

If low attachment, RC3 = RC4If high attachment, RC3> RC4

If low attachment, RC3 = RC4If 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？

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R3 R4 R5 Task

RC1RC2RC3RC4

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

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R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs

RC1RC2

就自己请教了 // 医生 //的病情 //


RC1=RC2, ps>.05

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R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs

RC3RC4

就丈夫请教了 // 医生 //的病情 //


RC3>RC4, ps<.05

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R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs

RC3RC4



RC3=RC4, ps>.05

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R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs

RC3RC4



RC3>RC4, ps<.05

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.

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.


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.

Attachment

Sentence types high attachment Low attachment

Control length 0.78 0.76 Longer NP1 0.81 0.80 Longer NP2 0.81 0.77

Results (RTs)

We conducted analyses for high attachment sentences and low attachment sentences respectively.

RTs for hi gh attachment sentences

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R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs

control l ength l onger NP1 l onger NP2

就自己的病情请教了医生。是否病句？

longer NP2<control length (p=.069, item analysis)


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R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs



ps>.05


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RTs



longer NP2<control length (ps<=.05)


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RTs



ps>.05

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

RTs for l ow attachment sentences

0200400600800

100012001400160018002000

R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs



longer NP1<control lengthlonger NP1<longer NP2 (ps<.05)


0200400600800

100012001400160018002000

R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs



ps>.05


0200400600800

100012001400160018002000

R3 R4 R5 Task

RTs



longer NP1<control lengthlonger NP1<longer NP2 (ps<.05)

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.


Thank you for your attention.

Comments are welcome.

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relative clause attachment in chinese 汉语定语从句的附着

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