We investigate sensitivity to island constraints in English native speakers and Najdi Arabic learners of English, examining (1) whether second language (L2) learners whose native language (L1) does not instantiate overt wh-movement are sensitive to island constraints and (2) the source of island effects. Under a grammatical account of islands, these effects arise due to violations of syntactic constraints. Under the resource-limitation account, island effects arise due to processing difficulty. The source of island effects is interesting to examine in L2 learners because it is possible that reduced processing abilities in the L2 may lead to the low acceptance of sentences with island violations simply due to the complexity of the sentences themselves as opposed to an adherence to grammatical constraints. To tease apart these accounts, we followed Sprouse et al. in focusing on individual differences in working memory (WM). We used an acceptability judgment task (AJT) to quantify island sensitivity and an automated operation span task to measure WM. Building on Sprouse et al., the AJT tested four island types, but we made several modifications to the task design to address concerns raised by Hofmeister et al.: the stimuli included a ‘context’ sentence to improve the naturalness of the complex wh-sentences. The stimuli also included complex wh-fillers (e.g. which worker) as opposed to bare fillers (who), as semantically rich wh-phrases have been found to be easier to process. Our results showed that learners, like natives, exhibited island sensitivity, and there was no evidence that individual differences in WM modulated island sensitivity for either natives or learners. Our results are compatible with the grammatical view of island effects and suggest that wh-dependencies in both L1 and L2 grammars are similarly constrained by syntax.

我们调查以英语为母语的人和纳吉迪阿拉伯语学习者对岛屿约束的敏感性，检查 (1) 其母语 (L1) 的第二语言 (L2) 学习者是否没有明显地实例化wh-运动对孤岛约束和（2）孤岛效应的来源很敏感。在对岛屿的语法描述下，这些影响是由于违反句法约束而产生的。在资源限制账户下，由于加工难度较大，会出现孤岛效应。在 L2 学习者中检查孤岛效应的来源很有趣，因为 L2 中处理能力的降低可能会导致对违反孤岛的句子的接受度较低，这仅仅是由于句子本身的复杂性而不是对语法的遵守。约束。为了梳理这些账户，我们关注了 Sprouse 等人。专注于工作记忆（WM）的个体差异。我们使用可接受性判断任务 (AJT) 来量化岛敏感性和自动操作跨度任务来测量 WM。w - 句子。刺激还包括复杂的wh填充词（例如which worker）而不是裸填充词（who），因为已发现语义丰富的wh短语更容易处理。我们的结果表明，学习者和当地人一样，表现出岛屿敏感性，并且没有证据表明 WM 的个体差异会调节当地人或学习者的岛屿敏感性。我们的结果与岛效应的语法观点兼容，并表明L1 和 L2 语法中的wh依赖关系同样受到语法的约束。