Is There a Particular RC Attachment Preference in Turkish? Negotiating the Effects of Semantic Factors

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Küçük Resim

Tarih

2020

Dergi Başlığı

Dergi ISSN

Cilt Başlığı

Yayıncı

SPRINGER/PLENUM PUBLISHERS

Erişim Hakkı

info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess

Özet

The goal of this study is to investigate whether or not Turkish has a particular preference in ambiguity resolution of relative clause attachment when two possible NPs are available as in "Someone shot [NP1 the servant] of [NP2 the actress] [RC who was on the balcony]& x2ee;. The relevant literature has showed that RC attachment preferences-whether NP1 or NP2-vary across languages, which results in contradictory evidence if some universal processing principle is assumed. Turkish differs typologically from English and other European languages in the construction of RC using complex "genitive-possessor" construction. In order to make a valid cross-linguistic comparison it is therefore of particular importance to carefully control potential extraneous factors which might obstruct true attachment preferences-if they exist. The present study, which controls various confounding factors, reveals that both syntactic and non-syntactic factors should be taken into consideration when constructing the stimulus sentences for testing attachment ambiguity resolution. Specifically, we propose that the semantic relations (e.g. part-whole relations) between the noun phrases of the genitive-possessive construction and the semantic associations with the proximal as well as with the distal predicate play a key role in the attachment preferences of monolingual Turkish native speakers in this type of ambiguous sentences. When these extraneous factors were controlled, no preference was observed.

Açıklama

Anahtar Kelimeler

Relative clause attachment, First language processing, Turkish, Ambiguity resolution, Complex genitive-possessive construction

Kaynak

JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH

WoS Q Değeri

Q2

Scopus Q Değeri

Q1

Cilt

49

Sayı

4

Künye

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