The missing-VP effect in readers of English as a second language.

English sentences with double center-embedded clauses are read faster when they are made ungrammatical by removing one of the required verb phrases. This phenomenon is known as the missing-VP effect. German and Dutch speakers do not experience the missing-VP effect when reading their native language, but they do when reading English as a second language (L2).

Judgements about double-embedded relative clauses differ between languages.

When the middle verb phrase is removed from an English double-embedded sentence, the remainder of the sentence is read faster in spite of the ungrammaticality. It has been shown that this "missing-VP effect" is reversed in German and Dutch. The current study demonstrates that the same cross-linguistic difference holds for sentences judgments: Native speakers consider English double-embedded sentences more comprehensible and acceptable when the middle verb phrase is removed, whereas the same is not the case in Dutch.