{"id":{"repo_id":"ku","oai_identifier":"oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/10281"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/ku/oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/10281","repository":{"repo_id":"ku","name":"University of Kansas","base_url":"https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Online Processing of Wh-Dependencies in English by Native Speakers of Spanish","abstract":"This study investigated if, Spanish-speaking learners of English are capable of processing wh-dependencies incrementally and observing the grammatical constraints that regulate wh-extraction in English, similar to native speakers. The study included two self-paced reading experiments run in a word-by-word non-cumulative moving window paradigm (Just et al., 1982). Experiment 1 tested if second language (L2) learners process wh-dependencies incrementally by looking at wh-extraction from positions licensed by the grammar. Experiment 2 focused on testing if learners respect syntactic constraints that forbid wh-extraction from positions not licensed by the grammar, to be specific, extraction out of relative clause islands. The data collected in both experiments were subject to a residual reading times analysis. The results of the two experiments suggest that Spanish-speaking learners of English process wh-dependencies incrementally and that they abide by grammatical constraints in the course of online processing which prevent them from extracting a wh-element outside of a relative clause island. At the theoretical level, our findings suggest that the claim of the Shallow Structures Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006 a,b) that adult second language learners are `shallow processors' who do not have access to abstract syntax during parsing is too strong.","abstract_html":"This study investigated if, Spanish-speaking learners of English are capable of processing wh-dependencies incrementally and observing the grammatical constraints that regulate wh-extraction in English, similar to native speakers. The study included two self-paced reading experiments run in a word-by-word non-cumulative moving window paradigm (Just et al., 1982). Experiment 1 tested if second language (L2) learners process wh-dependencies incrementally by looking at wh-extraction from positions licensed by the grammar. Experiment 2 focused on testing if learners respect syntactic constraints that forbid wh-extraction from positions not licensed by the grammar, to be specific, extraction out of relative clause islands. The data collected in both experiments were subject to a residual reading times analysis. The results of the two experiments suggest that Spanish-speaking learners of English process wh-dependencies incrementally and that they abide by grammatical constraints in the course of online processing which prevent them from extracting a wh-element outside of a relative clause island. At the theoretical level, our findings suggest that the claim of the Shallow Structures Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006 a,b) that adult second language learners are `shallow processors' who do not have access to abstract syntax during parsing is too strong.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Canales, Alonso Jose"],"institution":"University of Kansas","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Gabriele, Alison","Fiorentino, Robert"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012-08-31","date_published":"2012-08-31","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:45:54Z","subjects":["Linguistics","Island constraints","Online sentence processing","Shallow structures hypothesis","SLA","Spanish","Wh-movement"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:12313"],"render_values":[{"text":"http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:12313","href":"http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:12313","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/1808/10281","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Gabriele, Alison","Fiorentino, Robert"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Canales, Alonso Jose"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2012-10-28T16:06:57Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2012-10-28T16:06:57Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2012-08-31"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["University of Kansas"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Linguistics","Island constraints","Online sentence processing","Shallow structures hypothesis","SLA","Spanish","Wh-movement"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:12313"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/1808/10281"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This study investigated if, Spanish-speaking learners of English are capable of processing wh-dependencies incrementally and observing the grammatical constraints that regulate wh-extraction in English, similar to native speakers. The study included two self-paced reading experiments run in a word-by-word non-cumulative moving window paradigm (Just et al., 1982). Experiment 1 tested if second language (L2) learners process wh-dependencies incrementally by looking at wh-extraction from positions licensed by the grammar. Experiment 2 focused on testing if learners respect syntactic constraints that forbid wh-extraction from positions not licensed by the grammar, to be specific, extraction out of relative clause islands. The data collected in both experiments were subject to a residual reading times analysis. The results of the two experiments suggest that Spanish-speaking learners of English process wh-dependencies incrementally and that they abide by grammatical constraints in the course of online processing which prevent them from extracting a wh-element outside of a relative clause island. At the theoretical level, our findings suggest that the claim of the Shallow Structures Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006 a,b) that adult second language learners are `shallow processors' who do not have access to abstract syntax during parsing is too strong."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Online Processing of Wh-Dependencies in English by Native Speakers of Spanish"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Gabriele, Alison","Fiorentino, Robert"],"dc:creator":["Canales, Alonso Jose"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2012-10-28T16:06:57Z"],"dc:date.available":["2012-10-28T16:06:57Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2012-08-31"],"dc:description.abstract":["This study investigated if, Spanish-speaking learners of English are capable of processing wh-dependencies incrementally and observing the grammatical constraints that regulate wh-extraction in English, similar to native speakers. The study included two self-paced reading experiments run in a word-by-word non-cumulative moving window paradigm (Just et al., 1982). Experiment 1 tested if second language (L2) learners process wh-dependencies incrementally by looking at wh-extraction from positions licensed by the grammar. Experiment 2 focused on testing if learners respect syntactic constraints that forbid wh-extraction from positions not licensed by the grammar, to be specific, extraction out of relative clause islands. The data collected in both experiments were subject to a residual reading times analysis. The results of the two experiments suggest that Spanish-speaking learners of English process wh-dependencies incrementally and that they abide by grammatical constraints in the course of online processing which prevent them from extracting a wh-element outside of a relative clause island. 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