A subject relative clause preference in a split-ergative language: ERP evidence from Georgian

Ellen Lau; Michaela Socolof; Nancy Clarke; Rusudan Asatiani; Maria Polinsky

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105199

A subject relative clause preference in a split-ergative language: ERP evidence from Georgian

Brain Lang. 2023 Jan:236:105199. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105199. Epub 2022 Dec 23.

Authors

Ellen Lau¹, Michaela Socolof², Nancy Clarke³, Rusudan Asatiani⁴, Maria Polinsky⁵

Affiliations

¹ University of Maryland, Department of Linguistics, 1401 Marie Mount Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA. Electronic address: ellenlau@umd.edu.
² University of Maryland, Department of Linguistics, 1401 Marie Mount Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA; McGill University, Department of Linguistics, 1085 Dr. Penfield, Room 111, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1A7, Canada.
³ University of Maryland, Department of Linguistics, 1401 Marie Mount Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA; Amazon, 27 Melcher St., Boston, MA 02210, USA.
⁴ Tbilisi State University, Department of General Linguistics, 13 Ilia Chavchavadze, Avenue, T'bilisi 0179, Georgia.
⁵ University of Maryland, Department of Linguistics, 1401 Marie Mount Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA. Electronic address: polinsky@umd.edu.

PMID: 36566683
DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105199

Abstract

A fascinating descriptive property of human language processing whose explanation is still debated is that subject-gap relative clauses are easier to process than object-gap relative clauses, across a broad range of languages with different properties. However, recent work suggests that this generalization does not hold in Basque, an ergative language, and has motivated an alternative generalization in which the preference is for gaps in morphologically unmarked positions-subjects in nominative-accusative languages, and objects and intransitive subjects in ergative-absolutive languages. Here we examined whether this generalization extends to another ergative-absolutive language, Georgian. ERP and self-paced reading results show a large anterior negativity and slower reading times when a relative clause is disambiguated to an object relative vs a subject relative. These data thus suggest that in at least some ergative-absolutive languages, the classic descriptive generalization-that object relative clauses are more costly than subject relative clauses-still holds.

Keywords: ERP; Ergativity; Georgian; Left Anterior Negativity (LAN); Relative clause.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Humans
Language*