Project Effects of verb meaning and context on relative clause placement Program Margo Katherine Wilke Undergraduate Research Internship Program Term Spring 2026 Status Accepted Research Area Experimental linguistics, language use, relative clause, linguistic annotation Description English speakers have a choice between a complex discontinuous structure, known as relative clause extraposition (RCE), and a simpler adjacent (ADJ) order (1a-b). 1. (a) A reporter showed up who wanted to ask questions. (RCE) (b) A reporter who wanted to ask questions showed up. (ADJ) Why should speakers ever choose RCE? Previous studies have suggested that RCE is more likely to be used when the main verb expresses an "appearance" meaning (e.g. appeared, showed up) and the prior discourse context makes the verb less prominent. However, no previous studies have tested both of these factors to see how they interact. The current study uses a spoken sentence production task to experimentally investigate how verb type and context jointly influence speakers' choice of structure. Supervisor Elaine J Francis Mentor Type of work required Your main responsibilities will involve assisting with linguistic coding of English sentences spoken by experiment participants. For example, you will listen to each sentence, transcribe it, and describe certain linguistic features. In addition to assisting with coding, you will read and discuss relevant research papers to gain a fuller understanding of the concepts behind the project and you will have the opportunity to present your work at the spring undergraduate research symposium.
Websites https://cla.purdue.edu/english/francislab/ Qualifications Having some background in linguistics (for example, having taken an introductory linguistics course) is preferred, but not required. Coding guidelines and training will be provided. Credit Hours 2 Weekly Hours 6 (estimated)