The influence of syntactic complexity on L2 prediction

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of syntactic complexity on prediction in second language (L2) processing. In a visual world eye-tracking experiment, we compared L2 listeners’ prediction while processing simple (e.g., The dancer will open/ get the present) vs. complex sentences (e.g., I know the friend of the dancer that will open/ get the present). Prediction was measured by comparing fixations to the targets (e.g., present) between semantically biasing (e.g., open) vs. neutral verb (e.g., get) conditions. Results showed that L2 listeners predicted while processing complex as well as simple sentences, but the prediction effect during complex sentence processing emerged somewhat later. These findings suggest that L2 prediction is influenced by syntactic complexity which can increase cognitive load during sentence processing.