Foucart, A. 1 , Santesteban, M. 2 , Branigan, H. 1 & Pickering, M. 1
1 Dept of Psychology. The University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, UK.
2 Dept. of Linguistics and Basque Studies. University of the Basque Country. Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.
Some studies have suggested an effect of L1 syntax on L2 agreement processing (Foucart & Frenck-Mestre,2011; Tockowitz & MacWhinney,2005). Previously, we showed that L1 syntactic rules affect the production of possessive structures (Foucart et al., 2010). Here we investigated whether such influence also occurs in comprehension. In a reading task involving possessives, we contrasted the performance of 18 English native speakers with that of two groups of 18 advanced late bilinguals with similar (Greek-English: possessives agree with the possessor) or different (Spanish-English: possessives agree with the possessee) agreement rules. In an eye-tracking experiment, participants read sentences in which the gender congruence of possessives and the gender matching between the possessor and the possessee were manipulated (e.g., Yesterday the witch kissed her/his daughter/son and left quietly). Preliminary results showed longer reading times for native speakers when the gender of the possessor and the adjective/pronoun conflicted. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between group and congruence for the native speakers and the Spanish-English bilinguals. In contrast, no interaction was found between the native speakers and the Greek-English bilinguals. These results suggest that L2 agreement may be affected by the L1 syntactic rules, at least in the case of possessive structures.