The present study reports the findings of two self-paced reading tasks (N = 98). The primary experiment (subjunctive task) investigated the effects of lexical preference on L1 Spanish and L2 Spanish readers' processing of the subjunctive during online sentence processing. Participants of various proficiency levels (intermediate, high intermediate, advanced and native Spanish speakers) read sentences that were either ±Form or ±Meaning. The variable "Form" was operationalized as a (mis)match between the lexical expression of modality in the main clause of a sentence and the mood marker (indicative or subjunctive) on the subordinate verb. The variable "Meaning" was operationalized as a (mis)match between the lexical-semantics of the subordinate verb in a sentence and the action or situation depicted in a corresponding image. The secondary experiment (local agreement task) investigated the same learners' processing of localized subject-verb agreement violations during online sentence processing. The results of the subjunctive task revealed that only native speakers demonstrated sensitivity (i.e., increased reading times as measured via a self-paced reading methodology) to modality-mood mismatches (±Form). Intermediate through advanced-level L2 learners demonstrated sensitivity to sentence-image mismatches (±Meaning) only. In the local agreement task, only intermediate L2 learners were not sensitive to grammaticality violations. These findings are discussed in light of the Lexical Preference Principle (VanPatten, 2004, 2007) and the Shallow Structures Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2011. / April 28, 2011. / Spanish Subjunctive, Sentence Processing, Lexical Preference, Input Processing, Shallow Structures Hypothesis / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael Leeser, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Kaschak, University Representative; Carolina González, Committee Member; Patrick Kennell, Committee Member; Gretchen Sunderman, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_254341 |
| Contributors | Cameron, Robert D. (Robert Duncan) (authoraut), Leeser, Michael (professor directing dissertation), Kaschak, Michael (university representative), González, Carolina (committee member), Kennell, Patrick (committee member), Sunderman, Gretchen (committee member), Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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