<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In the literature about processing of relative clauses (RCs), subject relatives (SRs) are reported to be easier than object relatives (ORs) in a number of languages, but the status of prenominal ORs in languages where the object follows the verb (SVO) is still partly controversial. This study explores the production of RCs in Cantonese in two elicited production experiments and two corpus studies. In the first elicited experiment, an overwhelming preference for SRs was observed. In two corpus studies where the context and the feature of arguments were uncontrolled, the reverse pattern was observed. In order to reconcile the two datasets, we speculate that what counts in object dependencies is the featural endowment of the subject, as in the intervention hypothesis implemented in Friedmann et al. 2009. A second elicited experiment was run to test this hypothesis. The results suggest that production of RCs in Cantonese displays a subject preference in general and that object dispreference is modulated by featural mismatch.</p></abstract>

In the literature about processing of relative clauses (RCs), subject relatives (SRs) are reported to be easier than object relatives (ORs) in a number of languages, but the status of prenominal ORs in languages where the object follows the verb (SVO) is still partly controversial. This study explores the production of RCs in Cantonese in two elicited production experiments and two corpus studies. In the first elicited experiment, an overwhelming preference for SRs was observed. In two corpus studies where the context and the feature of arguments were uncontrolled, the reverse pattern was observed. In order to reconcile the two datasets, we speculate that what counts in object dependencies is the featural endowment of the subject, as in the intervention hypothesis implemented in Friedmann et al. 2009. A second elicited experiment was run to test this hypothesis. The results suggest that production of RCs in Cantonese displays a subject preference in general and that object dispreference is modulated by featural mismatch.

Subject-Object Asymmetry in the Production of Relative Clauses in Cantonese

caterina.donati@linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr

Studies in Chinese Linguistics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"article-title":"Subject-Object Asymmetry in the Production of Relative Clauses in Cantonese"}

In the literature about processing of relative clauses (RCs), subject relatives (SRs) are reported to be easier than object relatives (ORs) in a number of...

Subject-Object Asymmetry in the Production of Relative Clauses in Cantonese

Published Online: Dec 31, 2019

Page range: 167 - 202

Received: Oct 02, 2018

Accepted: Jun 24, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/scl-2019-0006

Keywords
relative clauses, Cantonese, adult production, syntax

© 2019 Jiaying Huang et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Subject-Object Asymmetry in the Production of Relative Clauses in Cantonese

Published Online: Dec 31, 2019

Page range: 167 - 202

Received: Oct 02, 2018

Accepted: Jun 24, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/scl-2019-0006

Keywordsrelative clauses, Cantonese, adult production, syntax

© 2019 Jiaying Huang et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
relative clauses, Cantonese, adult production, syntax