Comprehension of double-center embedded relatives in Italian : a case for hierarchical intervention
Sala, Marco (Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca)
Bettelli, Giulia (Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca)
Giustolisi, Beatrice (Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca)
Vergallito, Alessandra (Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca)
Romero Lauro, Leonor Josefina (Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca)
Cecchetto, Carlo (Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca)

Date:	2023
Abstract:	Object relatives are more difficult to process than subject relatives. Several sentence processing models have been proposed to explain this difference. As double-center embedding relatives contain several long-distance dependencies, they are an ideal configuration to compare sentence processing models. The main aim of the present study was to compare the predictions of the featural Relativized Minimality approach with the ones of other relevant sentence processing models. 57 Italian-speaking healthy adults answered comprehension questions concerning the first, second, or third verb to appear in both double-center embedding and control sentences. Results show that questions concerning the matrix verb of double-center embedding structures were significantly easier and were associated with faster response times than questions concerning the embedded verbs. Furthermore, in object double-center embedding relatives the questions concerning the verb of the most embedded clause were easier than the ones concerning the verb of the intermediate embedded clause. This pattern of results is consistent with featural Relativized Minimality but cannot be fully explained by other sentence processing models.
Note:	Funding information. Giulia Bettelli was supported by a Fondazione Fratelli Confalonieri scholarship for PhD students.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Sentence processing ; Object relatives ; Double-center embedding ; Italian ; Hierarchical intervention
Published in:	Isogloss, Vol. 9 Núm. 1 (2023) , p. 1-29 (Articles) , ISSN 2385-4138

Adreça original: https://revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/article/view/v9-n1-sala-et-al
DOI: 10.5565/rev/isogloss.276

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