Consider these two sentences:
1. The lawyer who the judge addressed stood.
2. The lawyer who addressed the judge stood.
-Based on the work of Ted Gibson (1998), which of these sentences will be more difficult to read, and why?
A) Sentence 1, because it contains an object relative clause
B) Sentence 1, because it contains two semantically similar nouns
C) Sentence 2, because it is more complex structurally
D) Sentence 2, because it contains a subject relative clause

Question

Consider these two sentences:
1. The lawyer who the judge addressed stood. 
2. The lawyer who addressed the judge stood.
-Based on the work of Ted Gibson (1998), which of these sentences will be more difficult to read, and why?
A) Sentence 1, because it contains an object relative clause
B) Sentence 1, because it contains two semantically similar nouns
C) Sentence 2, because it is more complex structurally
D) Sentence 2, because it contains a subject relative clause

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

According to Ted Gibson, object relative clauses are more difficult to process than subject relative clauses. In sentence 1, "who the judge addressed" is an object relative clause, which makes it more difficult to read compared to the subject relative clause in sentence 2. Additionally, the presence of two semantically similar nouns in sentence 1 (lawyer and judge) can also contribute to processing difficulty.

Consider These Two Sentences