Processing subject and object relative clauses in Persian

Background and Aim: Numerous studies in different languages have shown that, in general, subject relative clauses (SRCS) are easier and faster to process than object relative clauses (ORCS). However, based on topichood hypothesis proposed by Mak, Vonk and Shriefers (۲۰۰۶), when the embedded noun phrase (NP) in a relative clause is a pronoun, the difficulty in processing ORCs is reduced or eliminated. Moreover, According to Fox and Thompson (۱۹۹۰), ORCS have a strong association with a discourse grounding function, while SRCs are associated with other functions, such as introducing new information about modified noun phrases. On this basis, if SRCs occur isolated from the discourse context and their embedded NPs are not mentioned previously, no difference will be found in their processing speed; By Contrast, when the referent of the embedded NP of ORCS is the ongoing topic in the preceding context, their processing speed probably would be faster. Methods: ۴۰ monolingual, ۲۰-۳۰ year old Persian-speaking normal adults were participated in two self-paced reading (SPR) experiments. The SPRS were presented in a linear, noncumulative (i.e., moving window) procedure with phrase-by-phrase segmentation. In the first experiment, the processing difficulty of different regions of SRCS and ORCS containing full embedded NPs and pronouns, and in the second one the comprehension processing of SRCS and ORCS with full embedded NPs in the presence of a context (a sentence before subject and object relative structures) were investigated. Results: The main aim of this research is to investigate the comprehension speed and accuracy of Persian SRCs and ORCS based on the mentioned hypotheses, respectively. Conclusion: The findings of the first experiment indicated that the processing speed of the regions within RCs were faster in pronominal ORCS, pronominal SRCs, full NP SRCS and full NP ORCS respectively. Also, the data of the second experiment revealed that contextual elements would help to ease the ORCS' processing, and processing ORCs preceded by the topical context is faster than SRCS in the similar context. The conclusions, in line with the results of a number of researches in other languages, confirmed the topichood hypothesis and the effect of the discursal factors with respect to the processing of Persian SRCs and ORCS.

کلیدواژه ها:

Relative clauses ، sentence processing ، Topichood ، Pronouns ، Discourse ، Persian