The syntactic structure and distance effect on sentence processing in Turkish

Çalışkan S., Kumcu A., Uzun İ. P.

Mersin Üniversitesi Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, cilt.1, sa.1, ss.1-30, 2025 (Hakemli Dergi)

Özet

Previous research using the Visual World Paradigm (VWP) has shown that sentence processing is influenced by the visual environment in which sentences are presented. This study investigates the online processing of the syntactic complexity and linear distance in Turkish sentence processing through an eye-tracking experiment employing the VWP. We examined how auditory-visual information interacts with syntactic complexity (nested vs. linear) and sentence distance (short vs. long). We hypothesized that auditory-visual information is sensitive to online processing of syntactic complexity in subject-relative clauses (SRCs), and the linear distance between pre- and postverbal positions is critical for incremental processing. Our findings showed that syntactic complexity affected gaze durations, and linear distance showed a distinct effect.