The present study examines the interpretation of Korean relative clauses (RC) by English speakers of L2 Korean. The purpose of the study is to see if these learners employ the same parsing strategy as native Korean speakers in the processing of a complex NP followed by a RC. Processing strategies were investigated with two different conditions, which were distinguished from each other by animacy presence in the second NP of a complex NP (e.g., chayk-ul ilk-nun apeci-uy atul ‘the son of the father who is reading a book’: [+ani, +ani] condition vs. kyosil-ey iss-nun haksayng-uy chayk ‘the book of the student who is in the classroom’: [+ani, -ani] condition). Korean speakers showed equal preference in the [+ani, +ani] condition, while they showed low attachment (LA) preference in the [+ani, -ani] condition. On the other hand, English speakers showed LA preference in both conditions. We assume that this LA preference by the English speakers might have been due to either the universal processing principle (recency) or influence from their L1, both of which make the same attachment site. The source of the Korean speakers diverging behavior is discussed on the basis of difference in verb meaning used in each condition. The discrepancy between the two language groups leads us to propose that English speakers do not rely on the same processing strategies as Korean speakers.

This study investigates whether L2 learners employ similar processing strategies as native speakers when disambiguating attachment of a relative clause (RC) in Korean as a second language (KSL). Different processing strategies were tested with temporarily ambiguous sentences containing RCs when the head NP is a complex NP (NP1 of NP2), in which either NP1 (low attachment, LA) or NP2 (high attachment, HA) can be an antecedent. The RCs were controlled for length (short vs. long) and position-sentence initial (scrambled word order) vs. sentence medial (canonical word order). Native speakers consistently showed a clear HA preference regardless of the length or the position of the RCs, whereas KSL learners showed a clear LA preference. The attachment differences between L1 and L2 are discussed in terms of transfer and prosodic sensitivity.