Chapter One：Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation of the study 1
1.1.1 The importance of studying relative clauses 1
1.1.2 Universal processing preference and Current gaps 2
1.2 Aims and research questions of the study 4
1.3 Structure of the book 5
Chapter Two：Typology of relative clauses 7
2.1 Types of relative clauses 8
2.1.1 External-headed RCs vs.Internal-headed RCs vs.Correlative RCs 8
2.1.2 Postnominal/head-initial RCs vs.Prenominal/head-final RCs 9
2.1.3 Subject-extracted RCs vs.Object-extracted RCs 9
2.1.4 Subject-modifying RCs vs.Object-modifying RCs 10
2.2 Word order type and RC type 11
2.3 Typological characteristics of English relative clauses 14
2.3.1 Restrictive vs.non-restrictive clauses in English 14
2.3.2 Derivation of English RCs 15
2.4 Typological characteristics of Chinese relative clauses 16
2.4.1 Typological characteristics of Chinese 16
2.4.2 The Uniqueness of Chinese RCs 20
Chapter Three：Sentence Processing Model 24
3.1 Universal subject preference 24
3.1.1 Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy 24
3.1.2 Experience/Frequency-based accounts 25
3.2 Working memory accounts(Gibson,1998;2000) 26
3.2.1 Storage Resources 27
3.2.2 Integration Cost 29
3.2.3 A brief comment：a bridge connecting structural theories and processing theories 31
3.3 Structure-based theories 33
3.3.1 Filler-Gap Domain(FGD)(Hawkins,1999;2004） 34
3.3.2 Phrase-Structural Distance Hypothesis(O'Grady,1997) 38
3.4 Word order theory 40
3.4.1 Canonical word order vs.non-canonical word order 40
3.4.2 Prediction about the English RC processing 40
3.4.3 Prediction about Chinese RC processing 41
3.5 Pragmatic functional perspective shift 41
3.5.1 Subject as a default perspective of readers 42
3.5.2 Prediction about English RC processing 42
3.5.3 Prediction about Chinese RC processing 43
3.6 An evaluation of predictions about English and Chinese RC processing 45
Chapter Four：Previous studies and findings 47
4.1 Processing relative clauses 47
4.1.1 Basic observations 47
4.1.2 Neurophysiological evidence 48
4.1.3 Neuroanatomical evidence 49
4.2 Consistent results of universality from English RC processing 50
4.2.1 General remarks 50
4.2.2 Eye-movement monitor 51
4.2.3 Self-paced reading 52
4.2.4 Event-related potential studies 54
4.2.5 Brain imaging studies using fMRI and PET 56
4.2.6 Lesion studies：Aphasia 59
4.3 Mixed results from Chinese RC processing 60
4.3.1 Self-paced reading 60
4.3.2 A maze task—mixed restults 72
4.3.3 Corpora study—supporting universal processing preference 74
4.3.4 Event-related potential studies 78
Chapter Five：An ERP experiment on Chinese RC Processing 80
5.1 ERP methodology 80
5.1.1 An overview of ERP 80
5.1.2 Geodesic EEG System(GES) 81
5.1.3 Software-relating ERP experiments 83
5.1.4 ERP language-related components 84
5.2 The ERP experiment design on Chinese relative clause processing 93
5.2.1 Aims 93
5.2.2 Participants 93
5.2.3 Materials and task 94
5.2.4 Design 96
5.2.5 Procedure 97
5.2.6 Electrophysiological recordings and preprocessing 97
5.2.7 Data analysis 98
5.3 Results 101
5.3.1 Behavioral results 101
5.3.2 Spatial Aspects of the ERP data 101
5.3.3 Statistical results 102
5.4 Discussions 135
5.4.1 Testing prior results of processing asymmetry 136
5.4.2 Involvement of topicalized sentences 139
5.4.3 Minimal pair analysis 142
5.4.4 Evaluation of sentence processing models 145
5.5 Conclusions 149
5.5.1 Non-applicability of universal subject preference to Chinese 149
5.5.2 General phenomenon of object relatives preference in Chinese 149
5.5.3 Non-existence of a universal processing model 150
5.5.4 Other findings contributing to a comprehensive model 150
Chapter Six：Concluding remarks 153
6.1 General findings 153
6.2 Significance of the study 154
6.3 Limitations of the study 155
6.4 Suggestions for future research 156
References 158
Appendix：Experimental Materials 175
后记 183