ATTENTION: The software behind KU ScholarWorks is being upgraded to a new version. Starting July 15th, users will not be able to log in to the system, add items, nor make any changes until the new version is in place at the end of July. Searching for articles and opening files will continue to work while the system is being updated.
If you have any questions, please contact Marianne Reed at mreed@ku.edu .
Online Processing of Wh-Dependencies in English by Native Speakers of Spanish
dc.contributor.advisor | Gabriele, Alison | |
dc.contributor.advisor | Fiorentino, Robert | |
dc.contributor.author | Canales, Alonso Jose | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2012-10-28T16:06:57Z | |
dc.date.available | 2012-10-28T16:06:57Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2012-08-31 | |
dc.date.submitted | 2012 | |
dc.identifier.other | http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:12313 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1808/10281 | |
dc.description.abstract | This study investigated if, Spanish-speaking learners of English are capable of processing wh-dependencies incrementally and observing the grammatical constraints that regulate wh-extraction in English, similar to native speakers. The study included two self-paced reading experiments run in a word-by-word non-cumulative moving window paradigm (Just et al., 1982). Experiment 1 tested if second language (L2) learners process wh-dependencies incrementally by looking at wh-extraction from positions licensed by the grammar. Experiment 2 focused on testing if learners respect syntactic constraints that forbid wh-extraction from positions not licensed by the grammar, to be specific, extraction out of relative clause islands. The data collected in both experiments were subject to a residual reading times analysis. The results of the two experiments suggest that Spanish-speaking learners of English process wh-dependencies incrementally and that they abide by grammatical constraints in the course of online processing which prevent them from extracting a wh-element outside of a relative clause island. At the theoretical level, our findings suggest that the claim of the Shallow Structures Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006 a,b) that adult second language learners are `shallow processors' who do not have access to abstract syntax during parsing is too strong. | |
dc.format.extent | 95 pages | |
dc.language.iso | en | |
dc.publisher | University of Kansas | |
dc.rights | This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author. | |
dc.subject | Linguistics | |
dc.subject | Island constraints | |
dc.subject | Online sentence processing | |
dc.subject | Shallow structures hypothesis | |
dc.subject | SLA | |
dc.subject | Spanish | |
dc.subject | Wh-movement | |
dc.title | Online Processing of Wh-Dependencies in English by Native Speakers of Spanish | |
dc.type | Dissertation | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Gabriele, Alison | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Fiorentino, Robert | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Sereno, Joan | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Torrence, Harold | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Li, Yan | |
dc.thesis.degreeDiscipline | Linguistics | |
dc.thesis.degreeLevel | Ph.D. | |
kusw.oastatus | na | |
kusw.oapolicy | This item does not meet KU Open Access policy criteria. | |
kusw.bibid | 8085823 | |
dc.rights.accessrights | openAccess |
Files in this item
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
-
Dissertations [4889]
-
Linguistics Dissertations and Theses [95]