L2 processing of complex scope ambiguity in English: can perceivers learn to access non-structural cues?

摘要

Studies show that native perceivers can employ various factors in resolving structural ambiguities. In the case of the English 'not-because' scope ambiguity, even though the usual dispreference for the low attachment of the because-chuse with respect to negation appears to violate the general recency-based parsing principle, a previous study showed that this difficulty can be neutralized when provided with non-structural cues such as prosody and/or pragmatics for native perceivers. A subsequent study on the same experimental protocol on the advanced-level L2 learners indicated that this dispreference was more persistent for learners, suggesting that the learners may not be able to access such cues sufficiently. The present study reports the results of the experiment on the beginner-intermediate L2 learners of English. The modified protocol with easier materials and an extra training session seemed to help the learners' comprehension, though it was not sufficient for them to access the cues in the way that the native perceivers did.