Connectionist Modeling of Experience-based Effects in Sentence ...

Chapter 2 Issues in Relative Clause Processing
center on the RC object which is the only NP available, wrongly interpreting it as an
object? If so, reading an SRC would also require one shift, namely from the embedded
NP to the sentential subject. This makes SRCs numerically as hard as ORCs. In addition
to the perspective shift in the SRC a reanalysis would be expected. The answers to the
questions concerning perspective shift in Chinese depends on the mechanism guiding the
reader’s perspective when subject is ambiguous or absent. To sum up, the perspective
shift account could probably account for a subject advantage in Mandarin, but this is
not clear. If so, an effect is expected on the head noun.
2.3.6 Summary
Table 2.3 shows an overview of the theories addressed here and their predictions regarding
English and Mandarin RCs. All mentioned theories agree on a subject preference
for English. However, a heterogenous picture appears on the Mandarin side. There
is a slight bias in the prediction pattern in favor of a subject preference. This would
integrate nicely into an otherwise universal consistency. Accessibility, Expectation, perspective
shift, and pure RC type frequency predict a clear subject preference, whereas
canonicity, Integration Cost, and Storage Cost under the Gap Assumption predict an
ORC advantage. Storage Cost under the Elided Subject Assumption would predict a
subject advantage on the RC region and an object advantage on the head noun. The
predictions of the Active Filler Strategy are unclear. As for experience, due to the granularity
problem the predictions are not clear. A connectionist implementation, as follows
in chapter 4, is believed to make more specific predictions. Anticipating the results, the
simulations predicted a weak ORC preference, which appeared, however, only at the
relativizer. Accounting for the corpus data by Kuo and Vasishth (2007) even caused
a subject preference in the RC region. To find out about the just discussed theories’
compatibility with empirical data, the next section will report important studies on the
subject/object difference in Chinese.
2.4 The RC Extraction Preference in Mandarin
Hsiao and Gibson, 2003
The self-paced reading study by Hsiao and Gibson (2003) was the first to report results
addressing the subject/object difference in Chinese. It had great impact on the discussion
about the universality of the subject preference across-languages because Chinese
was the first exception discovered. Hsiao and Gibson studied singly and doubly embedded
Mandarin relative clauses like the ones in examples (2.2) and (10) in a self-paced
reading task. For single-embedding they found an advantage for ORCs on the region
before the relativizer (N1 V1 / V1 N1). For the double-embedded RCs the relevant
regions were the 3rd and 4th word (de1 N2 / N1 de1 ) and the 5th and 6th word (V2
de2 / N2 de2 ). On both regions an object advantage was measured. Both singly and
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