Neurolinguistic & psycholinguistic investigations on evidentiality in Turkish

 
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speed-accuracy trade-off pattern was due to the monolinguals’ increased 
‘attention’, as the relative clauses are rather complex forms. The heritage 
speakers were both less accurate and slower in their RTs to the evidentiality 
violations than the time-reference violations.
In conclusion, the findings from the current study indicate that 
heritage speakers performed poorer than monolinguals in processing both 
evidentiality and time reference violations. Additionally, processing 
evidentiality violations proved more effortful for heritage speakers than 
processing time-reference violations by non-finite participle forms 
positioned in relative clauses. The data documented in this study do not 
support the Regression Hypothesis. We have argued that the heritage 
speakers’ poorer performance on evidentiality violations can be explained 
by the fact that these verb forms require integration of information from 
different linguistic levels, in this case at the syntax-pragmatics interface. 
This is inline with the Interface Hypothesis. It looks as though evidentiality 
is ‘simplified’ in Turkish heritage grammar, and, thus, heritage speakers are 
less likely to be aware of the semantic and pragmatic requirements of 
evidential morphology.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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CHAPTER 5