Pseudorelatives, relatives, and L1 attrition: Resilience and vulnerability in parser biases

Abstract

Aims: While research on syntactic L1 attrition has largely focused on interface phenomena (e.g., overt pronouns in null-subject languages), attrition has also been reported to affect syntactic parsing. This paper extends previous work by looking at the attrition of (pseudo)relative clause parser biases in L1-Italian L2-English speakers. This was done to investigate whether previous findings of attrition in the interpretation of ambiguous relative clauses can be accounted for by changes to the parsing of pseudorelatives. Method: To tap parser biases, we conducted a sentence interpretation task in Italian with ambiguous items. Within these items, pseudorelative availability was manipulated. Participants consisted of two groups of adult native Italian speakers: one living in Italy and one living in an English-speaking country. Data analysis: Responses from the sentence interpretation task were subjected to a mixed-effects logistic regression. Findings: Results indicated a global effect of attrition resulting in more low attachment interpretations. This did not interact with pseudorelative availability. Originality: We take this to be a novel contribution to the literature for two reasons. First, our results extend previous results from Spanish–English bilinguals to a new language pair. Second, we believe that this is the first study to investigate attrition of relative clause attachment biases in light of Grillo and Costa’s, Pseudorelative-First Hypothesis. Once this is taken into consideration, we argue that attrition of parser biases is not due to a loss of a global high attachment bias under pressure from the L2, but a strengthening of a low attachment bias already present in the L1. Implications: Results suggest that future work on attrition should look beyond conflicts in parser biases between a bilingual’s languages and raise the possibility that attrition affects attachment biases in other contexts.