Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Motivation of the study
1.1.1 The importance of studying relative clauses
1.1.2 Universal processing preference and Current gaps
1.2 Aims and research questions of the study
1.3 Structure of the book
Chapter Two: Typology of relative clauses
2.1 Types of relative clauses
2.1.1 External-headed RCs vs.Internal-headed RCs vs.Correlative RCs
2.1.2 Postnominal/head-initial RCs vs.Prenominal/head-final RCs
2.1.3 Subject-extracted RCs vs.Object-extracted RCs
2.1.4 Subject-modifying RCs vs.Object-modifying RCs
2.2 Word order type and RC type
2.3 Typological characteristics of English relative clauses
2.3.1 Restrictive vs.non-restrictive clauses in English
2.3.2 Derivation of English RCs
2.4 Typological characteristics of Chinese relative clauses
2.4.1 Typological characteristics of Chinese
2.4.2 The Uniqueness of Chinese RCs
Chapter Three: Sentence Processing Models
3.1 Universal subject preference
3.1.1 Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy
3.1.2 Experience/Frequency-based accounts
3.2 Working memory accounts (Gibson, 1998; 2000)
3.2.1 Storage Resources
3.2.2 Integration Cost
3.2.3 A brief comment: a bridge connecting structural theories and processing theories
3.3 Structure-based theories
3.3.1 Filler-Gap Domain (FGD) (Hawkins, 1999;2004)
3.3.2 Phrase-Structural Distance Hypothesis (O’’Grady,1997)
3.4 Word order theory
3.4.1 Canonical word order vs.non-canonical word order
3.4.2 Prediction about the English RC processing
3.4.3 Prediction about Chinese RC processing
3.5 Pragmatic functional perspective shift
3.5.1 Subject as a default perspective of readers
3.5.2 Prediction about English RC processing
3.5.3 Prediction about Chinese RC processing
3.6 An evaluation of predictions about English and Chinese RC processing
Chapter Four: Previous studies and findings
4.1 Processing relative clauses
4.1.1 Basic observations
4.1.2 Neurophysiological evidence
4.1.3 Neuroanatomical evidence
4.2 Consistent results of universality from English RC processing
4.2.1 General remarks
4.2.2 Eye-movement monitor
4.2.3 Self-paced reading
4.2.4 Event-related potential studies
4.2.5 Brain imaging studies using fMRI and PET
4.2.6 Lesion studies: Aphasia
4.3 Mixed results from Chinese RC processing
4.3.1 Self-paced reading
4.3.2 A maze task--mixed results
4.3.3 Corpora study--supporting universal processing preference
4.3.4 Event-related potential studies
Chapter Five: An ERP experiment on Chinese RC Processing
5.1 ERP methodology
5.1.1 An overview of ERP
5.1.2 Geodesic EEG System (GES)
5.1.3 Software-relating ERP experiments
5.1.4 ERP language-related components
5.2 The ERP experiment design on Chinese relative clause processing
5.2.1 Aims
5.2.2 Participants
5.2.3 Materials and task
5.2.4 Design
5.2.5 Procedure
5.2.6 Electrophysiological recordings and preprocessing
5.2.7 Data analysis
5.3 Results
5.3.1 Behavioral results
5.3.2 Spatial Aspects of the ERP data
5.3.3 Statistical results
5.4 Discussions
5.4.1 Testing prior results of processing asymmetry
5.4.2 Involvement of topicalized sentences
5.4.3 Minimal pair analysis
5.4.4 Evaluation of sentence processing models
5.5 Conclusions
5.5.1 Non-applicability of universal subject preference to Chinese
5.5.2 General phenomenon of object relatives preference in Chinese
5.5.3 Non-existence of a universal processing model
5.5.4 Other findings contributing to a comprehensive model
Chapter Six: Concluding remarks
6.1 General findings
6.2 Significance of the study
6.3 Limitations of the study
6.4 Suggestions for future research
References
Appendix : Experimental Materials
