Processing appositive relative clauses: Effects of information structure and sentence structure
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In a self-paced reading experiment, we investigate the processing of complex sentences containing a matrix clause and a subordinate clause, specifically, an appositive relative clause (ARC), which has been posited to have distinct information structural properties. We test the predictions made by three long-standing ordering principles: the given-new principle (given before new information ordering facilitates processing), the clause structure principle (matrix clause before subordinate clause ordering facilitates processing), and the clause-type mapping of information principle (given information in subordinate clause and new information in matrix clause facilitates processing). Our results show that predictions made by the given-new principle and the clause structure principle hold for sentences with an ARC. We do not find evidence for the clause-type mapping of information principle. Instead, our findings suggest that the matrix clause in sentences with an ARC has a function usually associated with subordinate clauses, namely grounding, whereby its content serves as the thematic ground that supports understanding of what follows in the next clause. We suggest this is due to the matrix clause-like nature of ARCs with respect to both their syntactic structure and their expected information status.
Source: Discourse Processes
Authors: Hans. A. Wilke, Jet Hoek, Bettelou Los, Antonella Sorace, Hannah Rohde
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4408503426