Processing Chinese Relative Clauses: Evidence for the Subject-Relative Advantage

摘要: A general fact about language is that subject relative clauses are easier to process than object clauses. Recently, several self-paced reading studies have presented surprising evidence relatives in Chinese relatives. We carried out three experiments attempted replicate these results. Two of our found a subject-relative preference, and the third study an object-relative advantage. Using random effects bayesian meta-analysis fifteen (including own), we show overall current for advantage quite strong (approximate posterior probability given data: 78–80%). argue retrieval/integration based accounts would difficulty explaining all experimental These findings important because they narrow theoretical space by limiting role class explanation—retrieval/integration cost—at least clause processing Chinese.