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No. 38 (2021)
Continuous publication

Language and communication

Relative Clauses with Double Nominal Antecedent in Spanish: An Experimental Review

https://doi.org/10.19053/0121053X.n38.2021.13367

Published 2021-10-21

  • Noelia Ayelén Stetie

Noelia Ayelén Stetie
CONICET/UBA

Abstract

A recurrent assumption in psycholinguistics is that certain universal principles of computational economy guide the structural decisions made during sentence
processing. The first study conducted in Spanish on attachment decisions (Cuetos & Mitchell, 1988) questioned the existence of such principles by presenting evidence that Spanish speakers prefer to use an early closure or high attachment strategy to solve the
interpretation of sentences with relative clauses with two potential antecedents. Since then, several studies have been conducted that provide contradictory evidence. In this paper, we present a comprehensive and critical review of the research on Spanish, examining the various methodologies used and the influence of different factors on syntactic processing. The implications of these findings for models of sentence processing are also discussed, and the possibility of considering universal principles is debated.

Keywords

language comprehension, syntactic parsing, relative clauses

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