View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Kölner UniversitätsPublikationsServer Sentence Processing in a Second Language: Ambiguity Resolution in German Learners of English Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität zu Köln vorgelegt von Anne Rah aus Aurich am 06.04.2009 Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Dany Adone Prof. Dr. Christiane M. Bongartz Disputation: 01.07.2009 Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 2 SENTENCE PROCESSING MODELS ............................................................................... 5 3 SENTENCE PROCESSING IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE ....................................... 21 4 METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES ........................................................................................ 41 4.1 Participants .......................................................................................................................... 41 4.2 Choice of experimental procedures .................................................................................... 44 4.3 Development of materials ................................................................................................... 49 4.4 Evaluation of materials ....................................................................................................... 51 4.5 Data analysis ........................................................................................................................ 53 5 EXPERIMENTS ON RC ATTACHMENT ...................................................................... 54 5.1 RC attachment preferences in German ............................................................................. 54 5.2 Predictions and research questions .................................................................................... 58 5.3 Experiment 1: Off-line RC attachment ............................................................................. 59 5.3.1 Participants ................................................................................................................... 60 5.3.2 Method ......................................................................................................................... 60 5.3.3 Results .......................................................................................................................... 62 5.3.4 Discussion .................................................................................................................... 64 5.4 Experiment 2: On-line RC attachment .............................................................................. 66 5.4.1 Participants ................................................................................................................... 67 5.4.2. Choice of materials ...................................................................................................... 67 5.4.3 Method ......................................................................................................................... 71 5.4.4 Results .......................................................................................................................... 72 5.4.5 Discussion .................................................................................................................... 79 5.5 Experiment 3: On-line RC Attachment II ......................................................................... 83 5.5.1 Participants ................................................................................................................... 84 5.5.2. Materials and Method .................................................................................................. 84 5.5.3 Results .......................................................................................................................... 84 5.5.4 Discussion .................................................................................................................... 89 5.6 Summary .............................................................................................................................. 90 6 EXPERIMENTS ON PP ATTACHMENT ....................................................................... 93 6.1 Experiment 4: On-line PP attachment preferences .......................................................... 93 6.1.1 Participants ................................................................................................................... 95 6.1.2 Development of Materials ............................................................................................ 95 6.1.3 Procedure ..................................................................................................................... 97 6.1.4 Results .......................................................................................................................... 98 6.1.5 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 104 6.2 Research questions and expectations for Experiments 5 and 6 ..................................... 109 6.3 Experiment 5: Off-line PP Attachments .......................................................................... 111 6.3.1 Participants ................................................................................................................. 111 6.3.2 Materials and Method ................................................................................................ 112 6.3.3 Results ........................................................................................................................ 114 6.3.4 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 115 6.4 Experiment 6: On-line PP attachments II ....................................................................... 116 6.4.1 Participants ................................................................................................................. 117 6.4.2 Materials and method ................................................................................................. 117 6.4.3 Results ........................................................................................................................ 119 6.4.4 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 126 6.5 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 129 7 ATTACHMENT PREFERENCES IN ADJUNCT QUESTIONS................................. 132 7.1. Ambiguous adjunct questions in German ....................................................................... 133 7.2 Predictions and research questions .................................................................................. 134 7.3 Experiment 7: Off-line attachment preferences ............................................................. 135 7.3.1 Participants and procedure ......................................................................................... 135 7.3.2 Results ........................................................................................................................ 137 7.3.3 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 138 7.4 Experiment 8: On-line attachment preferences .............................................................. 140 7.4.1 Participants and procedure ......................................................................................... 140 7.4.2 Results ........................................................................................................................ 141 7.4.3 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 149 7.5 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 153 8 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................ 155 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 207 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................. 233 A. GENERAL MATERIALS ................................................................................................ 233 A1. Language Profile (German) .............................................................................................. 233 A2. Language Profile (English) ............................................................................................... 233 A3. Information for Participants in on-line experiments ...................................................... 234 A4. Information for Participants in off-line experiments ..................................................... 234 B. MATERIALS FOR THE EXPERIMENTS ON RC-ATTACHMENT ........................ 234 B1. German off-line questionnaire ......................................................................................... 234 B2. English off-line questionnaire ........................................................................................... 236 B3. On-line