Cross-linguistic syntactic priming as rational expectation for syntactic repetition in the bilingual environment.

ABSTRACT: Recent research suggests that syntactic priming in language comprehension-the facilitated processing of repeated syntactic structures-arises from the expectation for syntactic repetition due to rational adaptation to the linguistic environment. To further evaluate the generalizability of this expectation adaptation account in cross-linguistic syntactic priming and explore the influence of second language (L2) proficiency, we conducted a self-paced reading study with Chinese L2 learners of English by utilizing the sentential complement-direct object (SC-DO) ambiguity. The results showed that participants exposed to clusters of SC structures subsequently processed repetitions of this structure more rapidly (i.e., larger priming effects) than those exposed to the same number of SC structures

SUBMITTER: Xu K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11259290 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature