摘要：Three experiments (self-paced reading, eyetracking and an ERP study) show that in relative clauses,
increasing the distance between the relativized noun and the relative-clause verb makes it more difficult
to process the relative-clause verb (the so-called locality effect). This result is consistent
with the predictions of several theories (Gibson, 2000; Lewis and Vasishth, 2005), and contradicts
the recent claim (Levy, 2008) that in relative-clause structures increasing argument-verb distance
makes processing easier at the verb. Levy’s expectation-based account predicts that the expectation
for a verb becomes sharper as distance is increased and therefore processing becomes easier at the
verb. We argue that, in addition to expectation effects (which are seen in the eyetracking study
in first-pass regression probability), processing load also increases with increasing distance. This
contradicts Levy’s claim that heightened expectation leads to lower processing cost. Dependencyresolution
cost and expectation-based facilitation are jointly responsible for determining processing
cost.
