Is syntactic priming semantically independent in first and second language?

The study employs syntactic priming to examine whether the prepositional phrase (PP) semantic role contributes to the parsing of PP-attachment syntactic structure in both first and second language. Participants were presented with a list of sentences that all shared both the syntactic attachment and PP semantic role (within-role), or a list where sentences in the last block differed in the PP semantic role (cross-role). Syntactic priming occurred across sentences that had the same and different semantic roles in first language (L1), indicating a semantically independent syntactic processing. Second language (L2) speakers revealed a smaller magnitude of cross-role syntactic priming.