Table I.

Example sentence stimuli

Condition	Example
Short‐subject	Thomas fragt sich, wer den Doktor am Dienstag nachmittag nach dem Unfall verständigt hat.
	Thomas asks himself, whonom the acc doctor on Tuesday afternoon after the accident called has
Short‐object	Thomas fragt sich, wen der Doktor am Dienstag nachmittag nach dem Unfall verständigt hat.
	Thomas asks himself, whoace thenom doctor on Tuesday afternoon after the accident called has
Long‐subject	Thomas fragt sich, wer am Dienstag nachmittag nach dem Unfall den Doktor verständigt hat.
	Thomas asks himself, whonom on Tuesday afternoon after the accident theace doctor called has
Long‐object	Thomas fragt sich, wen am Dienstag nachmittag nach dem Unfall der Doktor verständigt hat.
	Thomas asks himself, whoacc on Tuesday afternoon after the accident thenom doctor called has

The dislocated object and the subject noun phrase are indicated by italic font in object wh‐questions to demonstrate the distance of the hypothesized working memory demand. English translations are word‐by‐word translations.