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In this article we present a critical overview of the various investigations carried out to date on the subject/object asymmetry in the comprehension of relative clauses in Spanish. We review the findings reached so far through different experimental techniques and offer an overview of what these discoveries contribute to the discussion of the main theoretical proposals on sentence comprehension. We focus on four aspects of relative clauses in Spanish that can enrich the hypotheses that we have so far: (i) the structural ambiguity, (ii) the variety of relative types in Spanish (headed, false-free and free), (iii) the order of constituents and (iv) the animacity information and the gender, number and case of the nominals of the relatives. Thus, we try to identify what we know, what remains to be understood, and what are the most relevant directions of research in Spanish in order to inform contemporary theoretical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze, from the experimental methodology, the variation between te and lhe clitics as direct object. Some studies claim that lhe, originally a dative clitics of 3SG, is reinterpreted in Brazilian Portuguese as an accusative of 2SG, e.g.: "Eu lhe vi" after expansion of você form in the pronominal system (Ramos 1999; Almeida 2009; Souza 2014). Thus, lhe vary with te at accusative context. To analyze the cognitive counterpart of this variation, I developed a self-paced reading test, applied to participants of two Brazilian States (Rio de Janeiro and Ceará). In the experiment, I tested some recurrent assumptions in literature about the topic: (i) the referential ambiguity of clitics lhe and (ii) the diatopic conditioning about the use of lhe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]