The role of pragmatic principles in resolving attachment ambiguities: Evidence from eye movements

In an eyetracking experiment, participants read sentences that contained a prepositional phrase (PP) that could be attached to one of two preceding verbs. To understand the sentence, readers had to select which verb would serve as the host for the PP. In some of the sentences, the critical verbs and the PPs were part of a subordinate clause in which lexical and syntactic factors were expected to matter, but discourse factors favoring attachment of the material to positions where it would be relevant to the main assertion of the sentence were not expected to matter. In other sentences, the critical material was tested in main clause contexts in which the main assertion principle was predicted to apply. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that online attachment preferences were affected by clause type (main vs. subordinate). Specifically, the preference for a local verb over a distant verb was greater when the critical material appeared within a subordinate clause than when it appeared within a main clause. This pattern of results can be explained by the operation of the relativized relevance or main assertion principle, which in our sentences meant that participants favored attachment of the PP to the first verb over the second.     

Immediate memory for words from main and subordinate clauses at different age levels

A probe-latency task was used to assess accessibility to the words from the first and second clauses of four types of sentences. The sentences contained either independent clauses or main and subordinate clauses. The subjects were 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children, and adults. On sentences with no main-subordinate distinction, word recognition latencies were shorter for second clauses for all groups except 4-year-olds. On sentences with main and subordinate clauses systematically varied over position in the sentence, however, latencies were most often shorter for subordinate clauses, even when they occurred at the beginning of the sentence. The results indicate that a clause is not simply represented in abstract form rather than verbatim form once the complete clause has been heard, but instead the structural role of the clause, as well as other factors, influences accessibility to verbatim form. It is proposed that listeners frequently interpret an asserted main clause more readily than a subordinate clause. This comprehension strategy appears in different forms at different stages of development.This research was supported in part by NIMH Fellowship No. 1 FO2MH 57352-01 and in part by a Montclair State College Faculty Research Grant to the first author.     

Event order versus syntactic structure in recall of adverbial complex sentences

Two experiments using recall of sentences examined two contrasting principles of clause ordering in a type of complex sentences: the main-clause-first (syntactic) principle and the event-order (or temporal-causal order) prir ciple. In Experiment 1, these two principles were studied in complex sentences with a main clause and a subordinate adverbial clause-e.g., When she heard the thunder, she stopped playing Frisbee. In sentences of this type the subordinate clause typically describes a temporally or causally antecedent event, while the main clause describes a subsequent event in the temporal-causal sequence. These two principles make opposite predictions on what is the psychologically simpler or preferred order of the two clauses in this type of complex sentence. Results of Experiment 1 showed an overall preference in memory for main-clause-first order. In Experiment 2, complex sentences with a main clause and a subordinate clause not temporally or causally related were also used in a sentence recall task. Similar results were obtained. The implication of these findings for the determinants of linguistic structures was discussed.     

Selective Retention of Information about the Superficial Form of Text: Ellipses W ith Antecedents in Main and Subordinate Clauses

Elliptical verb phrases must be interpreted indirectly, using a representation of the surface form of nearby (usually preceding) text. We used this fact to demonstrate the different availability of superficial representations of the two clauses in main-subordinate pairs. The acceptability of a later ellipsis was reduced when it took its meaning from a main clause that was followed by a subordinate clause, as compared with other combinations. In addition, positive acceptability judgements were made more quickly (1) when the antecedent clause was subordinate, rather than main, suggesting that the superficial form of a subordinate clause is more important, and (2) when the antecedent was in the immediately preceding clause, rather than two clauses back. These results support the idea that the surface form of subordinate clauses is selectively retained until the corresponding main clause has been read, but the surface form of a main clause is not retained after it has been interpreted.     

Plausibility and Verb Subcategorization in Temporarily Ambiguous Sentences: Evidence from Self-Paced Reading

A self-paced reading experiment investigated processing of sentences containing a noun-phrase that could temporarily be mistaken as the direct-object argument of a verb in a subordinate clause but actually constituted the syntactic subject of the main clause (often referred to as an early vs. late closure ambiguity). Subcategorization preference of the subordinate verb and plausibility of the syntactic misanalysis were manipulated. Elevated reading times occurred during processing of the temporarily ambiguous noun-phrase for those sentences where the noun-phrase was an implausible direct-object of the preceding verb, regardless of the verbs subcategorization preferences. Elevated reading times were observed for all sentence types following syntactic disambiguation. Subsequent correlational analyses showed that the verbs individual subcategorization preferences affected processing time on the critical noun-phrase and the syntactically disambiguating main verb.     

Temporal references and temporal relations in sentence comprehension

The author investigated the interpretation of temporal references during comprehension of sentences containing a main and subordinate clause. Experiments 1 and 2 examined state and event subordinate clauses, respectively, and showed that subordinate temporal references overlapping with or close to the time of the main clause event were read faster than nonoverlapping distant references. Experiment 3 examined temporal references in nonsubordinate main clauses and confirmed that temporal relations between main and subordinate clauses were established on-line in the previous experiments. Experiment 4 independently manipulated temporal overlap and distance and suggested that event and state clauses are processed according to distinct temporal parameters. The results are explained by the contingency relations that events and states establish with other discourse events.     

Parallel function strategy in pronoun assignment

Subjects completed sentences of the form NP1 aux V NP2 because (but) Pro … (e.g., John may scold Bill because he …) with a reason or motive for the action described. A basic perceptual strategy was hypothesized to underlie the comprehension of these sentences which have a potentially ambiguous pronoun in the subject position of the subordinate clause. It was expected that listeners would interpret the pronoun as being coreferential with the subject NP of the main clause, the NP with the same grammatical function. While this strategy accounted for the major share of the results, semantic factors restricted its use, establishing an interpretation in which the pronoun was coreferential with the object NP of the main clause.     

The subordination effect: Evidence from self-paced reading and recall

Engelkamp and Rummer (2002) demonstrated that auditorily presented subordinate causal sentences are better retained than coordinate sentences. This subordination effect was explained by suggesting that subordinate sentences are merged more easily in memory than coordinate sentences. The present paper enlarges Engelkamp and Rummer's findings with respect to three aspects. First, it demonstrates that the subordination effect can only be found if a verbatim but not a content related recall score is used. Second, using self-paced reading, it demonstrates a processing advantage for subordinate sentences. This reading time advantage was only observed if the subordinate clause preceded the matrix clause. Third, it excludes an alternative explanation of the subordination effect which attributes memory differences to the fact that the critical causal conjunction word was presented earlier in subordinate than in coordinate sentences. In sum, our findings suggest a direct contribution of syntactic information to sentence regeneration.     

Overt reanalysis strategies and eye movements during the reading of mild garden path sentences

In an eye movement experiment, we examined the use of reanalysis strategies during the reading of locally ambiguous but globally unambiguous Spanish sentences. Among other measures, we examined regressive eye movements made while readers were recovering in reading mild garden path sentences. The sentences had an adverbial clause that, depending on the mood (indicative vs. subjunctive) of the subordinate clause verb, could attach high (to the main verb of the sentence) or low (to the verb in the subordinate clause). Although Spanish speakers favor low attachment, the high attachment version was quite easy to understand. Readers predominately used two alternative strategies to recover from the mild garden path in our sentences. In the more common reanalysis strategy, their eyes regressed from the last region (disambiguation+ 1) directly to the main verb in the sentence. Following this, they reread the rest of the sentence, fixating the next region and the adverb (the beginning of the ambiguous part of the sentence). Less frequently, readers regressed from the last region (disambiguation+1) directly to the adverb. We argue that both types of strategies are consistent with a selective reanalysis process as described by Frazier and Rayner (1982).     

Does Structural Complexity Necessarily Imply Processing Difficulty?

Our goal is to establish a link between the time needed to plan a sentence containing an embedded clause and the structure of this sentence. Contrary to a traditional monolithic conception of subordination, three types of embeddings were considered, depending on their degree of syntactic integration: subcategorized, modifier and pseudo-embedded clauses. We hypothesized that in the case of subcategorization, fewer pauses should occur between the matrix and the subordinate clause since the latter is required by the lexical properties of verbs. By contrast, pseudo-embedded clauses are the less integrated. Hence, they should exhibit planning characteristics similar to the ones of simple sentences, the matrix clause and the subordinate clauses being planned in two steps. Twenty texts produced by French speaking adults were recorded. Pauses were characterized according to their duration and position. Globally, both predictions were confirmed. We conclude that supposedly complex sentences are not necessarily difficult to process.     

Evaluating information for truthfulness: The effects of logical subordination

Research has shown that many individuals do not routinely evaluate new information for consistency with respect to what they already know. One factor that may affect the likelihood of critical evaluation is whether or not the information is the central focus of the message. Two experiments tested this possibility by establishing differential emphasis of false information within complex sentences. Half of the target sentences contained a false fact in the main clause and half contained a false fact in the subordinate clause. In Experiment 1 subjects verified 64 sentences presented orally as either true or false. In Experiment 2 subjects read and evaluated 20 paragraphs for the presence of false information. As expected, subjects were less likely to report the false information when it was conveyed as logically subordinate rather than central. The results suggest one explanation for deficits in comprehension monitoring and have implications for understanding susceptibility to persuasive communications.     

Oral production of linguistically complex sentences with meaning relationships of time

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the abilities of children to use the adjoining mechanism in combining two constituent sentences with the temporal adjoiners: after, before, until, when, and while. To elicit responses, a sentence repetition task was devised that included these five temporal adjoiners in four different syntactic environments: transitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause following the main clause, transitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause preceding the main clause, intransitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause following the main clause, and intransitive sentences with the adjoiner and the subordinate clause preceding the main clause. The 30 were between the ages of 4O and 66 years. They were average children who were free from any known emotional disturbance, who were acquiring Standard American English as a native language, who had normal speech and hearing, and whose parents had neither very high nor very low socioeconomic status. To the extent that the children in this study were representative of normal-speaking children of their ages, certain general conclusions were drawn. Children begin to use the temporal adjoining mechanism early, but they do not master it by the age of 66 years. The ability to use the adjoiners, nor is it equal for different syntactic structures nor for all degrees of semantic complexity. After, before, and when appear earlier than while and until. A rapid period of growth in learning to use the temporal adjoining mechanism occurs between the ages of 4 and 5 years. However, a plateau of learning appears to be reached between the ages of 5 and 6 years. In general, children first learn to use the temporal adjoining mechanism in intransitive sentences with the adjoining link in the middle or at the beginning of the utterance. Next, they learn to use it in transitive sentences with the adjoining link at the beginning of the utterance. Finally, they learn to use it in transitive sentences with the adjoining link in the middle of the utterance. In transitive sentences, children appear to learn the rule for placing the subordinate clause at the beginning of the utterance when temporally adjoining two constituent sentences before they learn the base structure rule. In intransitive sentences, they appear to learn the rule for placing the subordinate clause at the beginning of the utterance when temporally adjoining two constituent sentences at the same time that they learn the base structure rule. The underlying semantic relationships that are expressed by specific temporal adjoiners are important determinants of children's abilities to use these adjoiners. In linguistic evaluations, one should consider the syntactic environment in which the temporal adjoiner occurs and assume that after, before, and when are developmentally earlier than while and until.     

Working memory contributions to relative clause attachment processing: A hierarchical linear modeling analysis

An eye-movement-monitoring experiment tested readers' responses to sentences containing relative clauses that could be attached to one or both of two preceding nouns. Previous experiments with such sentences have indicated that globally ambiguous relative clauses are processed more quickly than are determinately attached relative clauses. Central to the present research, a recent study (Swets, Desmet, Hambrick, & Ferreira, 2007) showed that offline preferences for such sentences differ as a function of working memory capacity. Specifically, both English and Dutch participants' preference for the second of two nouns as the host for the relative clause increased as their working memory capacity increased. In the present study, readers' working memory capacity was measured, and eye movements were monitored. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to determine whether working memory capacity moderated readers' online processing performance. The modeling indicated that determinately attached sentences were harder to process than globally ambiguous sentences, that working memory did not affect processing of the relative clause itself, but that working memory did moderate how easy it was to integrate the relative clause with the preceding sentence context. Specifically, in contrast with the offline results from Swets and colleagues' study, readers with higher working memory capacity were more likely to prefer the first noun over the second noun as the host for the relative clause.     

Recall of grammatical relations within clause-containing sentences

Two major findings were obtained in a study of college students' recall of meaningful grammatical relations within sentences: (1) verb-object relations in object focus relative clauses were recalled less accurately than verb-object relations in subject focus relative clauses, thus supporting the hypothesis that permuted word order in certain relative clauses interferes with adequate encoding of underlying grammatical relations, and (2) subject-verb relations in nested sentences in which a relative clause intervened between subject and verb (nested sentences) were retained in memory as accurately as uninterrupted subject-verb relations (not nested sentences).     

On-line and off-line reflexive resolution in Japanese logophoric sentences

This study investigates on-line and off-line resolution of a Japanese reflexive,jibun, for logophoric sentences, i.e., complex sentences involving a matrix verb that reflects one's point of view feelings, or state of consciousness, and for nonlogophoric sentences, i.e., complex sentences involving a subordinate adverbial clause. According to Kuroda's (1973) thesis and Chomsky's (1981) binding principle (for nonlogophoric sentences only), the reflexive in the logophoric sentences can be associated with the subject of both a matrix sentence and a subordinate sentence whereas that in the nonlogophoric sentences can only be associated with the subject of the subordinate sentence. In Experiment 1, 42 students were administered a probe-recognition task in which a probe was given for the subject either of the matrix sentence or of the subordinate sentence immediately after the end of the subordinate clause or at the end of a sentence following the matrix verb. Recognition times were faster for a matrix-subject probe than for a subordinatesubject probe regardless of the sentence type and probe position. In Experiment 2, 40 students were administered an on-line antecedent identification task in which they were required to quickly and accurately identify, when given a probe, the antecedent of the reflexive, with the probe given after the reflexive or at the end of a sentence. Regardless of the sentence type, matrix-subject was judged to be the antecedent of the reflexive more often than subordinate-subject, with the effect of probe position being negligible. An offline study required 136 students to indicate the antecedent(s) for the two types of sentence given in their entirety. No effect of sentence type was found. Findings indicate that neither Kuroda's thesis nor Chomsky's binding principle is applied when Japanese speakers parse logophoric and nonlogophoric sentences.Part of this study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, No. 05610067. Deep gratitude is due to Professor D. D. Steinberg for reading an earlier version of this paper. Thanks are also due to Ms. S. Ogawa for her help in collecting part of the off-line data.     

Utilization of Prosodic Information in Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution

Two self paced listening experiments examined the role of prosodic phrasing in syntactic ambiguity resolution. In Experiment 1, the stimuli consisted of early closure sentences (e.g., “While the parents watched, the child sang a song.”) containing transitive-biased subordinate verbs paired with plausible direct objects or intransitive-biased subordinate verbs paired with implausible direct objects. Experiment 2 also contained early closure sentences with transitively and intransitive-biased subordinate verbs, but the subordinate verbs were always followed by plausible direct objects. In both experiments, there were two prosodic conditions. In the subject-biased prosodic condition, an intonational phrase boundary marked the clausal boundary following the subordinate verb. In the object-biased prosodic condition, the clause boundary was unmarked. The results indicate that lexical and prosodic cues interact at the subordinate verb and plausibility further affects processing at the ambiguous noun. Results are discussed with respect to models of the role of prosody in sentence comprehension.     

Sentence processing strategies in Spanish and English

In parallel experiments, 12 English- and 12 Spanish-speaking subjects read right-branching and self-embedded sentences with one, two, or three subordinate clauses, in their native languages. Subjects read the sentences one word at a time, the subjects controlling the rate of presentation by means of a computer keyboard. The reading time for each word was recorded. After each sentence subjects performed one of four comprehension tasks. Reading times indicated that Spanish- and English-speaking subjects employ different processing strategies. Results of the comprehension tasks indicated that Spanish-but not English-speaking subjects understood self-embedded sentences with two subordinate clauses. These results are discussed in terms of the relative importance of the clause as a perceptual unit in the two languages, and the implications of the differences in comprehension for theories of sentence processing.     

The processing and remembering of congruent and incongruent sentences

Complex sentences, withwhile, before, after, because, orin order to, and other presented clauses were to be conjoined together by using eitherand, orbut. Congruent cases, in which subjects were expected to respond withand, had shorter response latencies than incongruent cases, with expectedbut responses. This indicated a semantic incongruence effect. But the latter were remembered better, indicating a motivational salience effect due to contradiction of expectation. Whether the main clause preceded or followed the subordinate clause was not significant, in terms of either reponse latencies or sentence memory. Sentences withafter had faster response times than those withbefore, although identical constituent clauses were used.     

Plausibility and subcategorization preference in children's processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences: Evidence from self-paced reading

Three self-paced reading experiments investigated children's processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences. Across the three experiments, subcategorization preference of a verb in a subordinate clause and the semantic plausibility of the misanalysis were manipulated. Reading times in the temporarily ambiguous region and following syntactic disambiguation indicated that children in the age range tested (8 years, 11 months to 12 years, 11 months) routinely misanalyse sentences of the type tested, and their tendency to misanalyse the sentences does not depend on the subcategorization preferences of the initial verb. Additional correlational analyses suggested that subcategory information did affect the degree of difficulty that readers experienced processing the critical noun and matrix verb.     

Subordinating conjunctions as devices for unifying sentences in memory

In two experiments, we provide evidence that the subordinating conjunctions "nachdem" [after] and "weil" [because] unify sentences in immediate memory better than the coordinating conjunctions "erst-dann" [first-then] and "deshalb [therefore] are able to do. Immediate recall of the two clauses of subordinate sentences was equally good, whereas recall of coordinate sentences was better for the first clause than for the second in both experiments. In Experiment 2, it was additionally shown that this recall pattern was not due to prosodic information.