Lexical projection and the interaction of syntax and semantics in parsing

A series of self-paced reading studies utilized an embedded anomaly technique to investigate long-distance dependencies with dative verbs. Previous research i our lab demonstrated that argument structure influences the gap-filling process. Experiment I extended that work by demonstrating that dative verbs pattern with other complex transitive verbs (i.e., a fronted filler that is implausible as the direct object will not be interpreted as the direct object until the absence of a noun phrase after the verb forces the postulation of a direct object gap. This pattern contrasts with that of transitive verbs that subcategorize for a single internal argument position, where fronted fillers are obligatorily interpreted as the direct object). Experiments 2 and 3 investigate the prediction that semantic analyses precede syntactic analyses in dative questions. It is argued that the lexical information about argument structure and thematic roles can guide semantic interpretation.This research was supported in part by NSF grant BNS-8617738 and NIH grant HD-22271.     

Do verb bias effects on sentence production reflect sensitivity to comprehension or production factors?

Speakers should be motivated to produce easy-to-understand sentences, but they must successfully say sentences that are harder to produce. Four experiments assessed how verb bias influences the mention of the optional “that” in sentence-complement structures. Without the “that”, such sentences can be incorrectly interpreted as including direct objects (garden paths), and especially so after direct-object-biased verbs (compared to embedded-clause-biased verbs). But direct-object-biased verbs are rarely produced as sentence-complement structures, and so they might be harder to produce as such. Experiments 1 and 2 show that speakers mention the “that” more after direct-object-biased verbs than after embedded-clause-biased verbs. Experiment 3a shows that sentences with verbs biased toward neither direct objects nor embedded subjects were often produced with the “that”, and Experiment 3b shows that postverbal noun phrases after neither-biased verbs are interpreted as direct objects less than direct-object-biased verbs and so should cause a milder garden path. Thus, frequent “that” mention is not sensitive to the tendency of a verb to be followed by a direct object, but by how rarely the verb has been produced in the formulated structure.     

Semantic detail in the developing verb lexicon: An extension of Naigles and Kako (1993)

Verbs are often uttered before the events they describe. By 2 years of age, toddlers can learn from such an encounter. Hearing a novel verb in transitive sentences (e.g. The boy lorped the cat), even with no visual referent present, they later map it to a causative meaning (e.g. feed) (e.g. Yuan & Fisher, 2009 ). How much semantic detail does their verb representation include on this first, underinformative, encounter? Is the representation sparse, including only information for which they have evidence, or do toddlers make more specific guesses about the verb's meaning? In two experiments (N = 76, mean age 27 months), we address this using an event type studied by Naigles and Kako ( 1993 ); they found that when toddlers hear a novel transitive verb while simultaneously viewing a non‐causative referent—a contact event such as patting—they map the verb to the contact event. In Experiment 1 we replicated this basic result. Further, toddlers’ representations persisted over a 5‐minute delay, manifesting again during a retest. In Experiment 2, toddlers heard the verbs while watching two actors converse instead of while seeing contact events. At test, they showed no evidence of mapping the verbs to contact events, either initially or after a 5‐minute delay, despite that in prior work they mapped verbs to causative events under identical circumstances. We infer that on hearing a novel verb in a transitive frame, absent a relevant visual scene, toddlers posit a more specific representation than the evidence requires—one that incorporates causative semantics. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/aRCqSTbr6Bw     

2.5-year-olds use cross-situational consistency to learn verbs under referential uncertainty

Recent evidence shows that children can use cross-situational statistics to learn new object labels under referential ambiguity (e.g., Smith & Yu, 2008). Such evidence has been interpreted as support for proposals that statistical information about word-referent co-occurrence plays a powerful role in word learning. But object labels represent only a fraction of the vocabulary children acquire, and arguably represent the simplest case of word learning based on observations of world scenes. Here we extended the study of cross-situational word learning to a new segment of the vocabulary, action verbs, to permit a stronger test of the role of statistical information in word learning. In two experiments, on each trial 2.5-year-olds encountered two novel intransitive (e.g., "She's pimming!"; Experiment 1) or transitive verbs (e.g., "She's pimming her toy!"; Experiment 2) while viewing two action events. The consistency with which each verb accompanied each action provided the only source of information about the intended referent of each verb. The 2.5-year-olds used cross-situational consistency in verb learning, but also showed significant limits on their ability to do so as the sentences and scenes became slightly more complex. These findings help to define the role of cross-situational observation in word learning.     

The effect of context on the processing of type-shifting verbs

Recent research in lexical semantics has suggested that verbs such as begin and enjoy semantically select for a complement that denotes an activity or an event. When no such activity or event is specified in the form of a progressive or infinitival complement, as in John began (to read/reading) the book, the verb is said to "coerce" the NP direct object to shift its role to encompass the activity that begin requires as complement (e.g., writing, reading). Empirical support for this view has been provided by McElree, Traxler, Pickering, Seely, & Jackendoff (2001). In the present study, however, in two self-paced reading experiments, type-shifting effects (taken to be longer reading times engendered by the computation of the coercion process) were not obtained with sentences in isolation (Experiment 1) or with sentences embedded in contexts that specified the nature of the activity performed over the complement NP (Experiment 2). It is argued that type-shifting verbs are similar to non-preferred verbs for given contexts and that type-shifting operations are pragmatic inferences computed over underspecified semantic representations.     

Lexical or syntactic control of sentence formulation? Structural generalizations from idiom production

To compare abstract structural and lexicalist accounts of syntactic processes in sentence formulation, we examined the effectiveness of nonidiomatic and idiomatic phrasal verbs in inducing structural generalizations. Three experiments made use of a syntactic priming paradigm in which participants recalled sentences they had read in rapid serial visual presentation. Prime and target sentences contained phrasal verbs with particles directly following the verb (pull off a sweatshirt) or following the direct object (pull a sweatshirt off). Idiomatic primes used verbs whose figurative meaning cannot be straightforwardly derived from the literal meaning of the main verb (e.g., pull off a robbery) and are commonly treated as stored lexical units. Particle placement in sentences was primed by both nonidiomatic and idiomatic verbs. Experiment 1 showed that the syntax of idiomatic and nonidiomatic phrasal verbs is amenable to priming, and Experiments 2 and 3 compared the priming patterns created by idiomatic and nonidiomatic primes. Despite differences in idiomaticity and structural flexibility, both types of phrasal verbs induced structural generalizations and differed little in their ability to do so. The findings are interpreted in terms of the role of abstract structural processes in language production.     

Semantic context influences memory for verbs more than memory for nouns

Three experiments revealed that memory for verbs is more dependent on semantic context than is memory for nouns. The participants in Experiment 1 were asked to remember either nouns or verbs from intransitive sentences. A recognition test included verbatim sentences, sentences with an old noun and a new verb, sentences with an old verb and a new noun, and entirely new sentences. Memory for verbs was significantly better when the verb was presented with the same noun at encoding and at retrieval. This contextual effect was much smaller for nouns. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect and provided evidence that context effects reflect facilitation from bringing to mind the same meaning of a verb at encoding and at retrieval. Memory for verbs may be more dependent on semantic context because the meanings of verbs are more variable across semantic contexts than are the meanings of nouns.     

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.     

汉语及物动词词典中宾语信息的表征

该研究利用认知行为反应时方法,操作汉语及物动词与宾语之间的搭配关系,对汉语及物动词词典中宾语信息的表征情况进行了考察。结果发现,随着动词与宾语搭配的语义违反程度的增大,反应时增加。这表明,汉语及物动词词典中存在比较精确的宾语信息,其宾语信息是以语义特征来表征的。     

Toddlers recognize verbs in novel situations and sentences

Toddlers' (MA=22 and 27 months) ability to extend newly taught verbs to new situational and sentential contexts was investigated. Children were interactively taught two novel verbs, presented in only the transitive frame (e.g. You're lorping the ball), in a playroom setting. They then viewed the verb actions presented on side-by-side monitors and were asked to distinguish the verbs in three test frames (transitive, intransitive, neutral (e.g. lorping)). Both groups demonstrated learning of the verbs in the new situation and generalized the verbs to the intransitive sentence frame, but neither generalized reliably to the neutral frame. We conclude that even 22-month-olds demonstrate considerable context independence in their verb representations.     

Chinese‐Speaking Adults' Understanding of Argument Structure

Syntactic constructions roughly correspond to sentence meanings. Jiang and Haryu (2014) found that Chinese children can associate subject‐verb‐object (SVO) constructions with causative events at age 2, but do not always map subject‐verb (SV) constructions to noncausative events, even after reaching 5 years of age. The latter results may be attributed to the fact that Chinese allows argument‐dropping. That is, an SV sentence in Chinese sometimes includes an intransitive verb, but other times includes a transitive verb with the object dropped. This paper investigated Chinese adults' knowledge of syntax‐semantics correspondence. Experiment 1 found that Chinese adults did not always map SV sentences to noncausative events, while they almost always mapped SVO sentences to causative events. Experiment 2 found that they preferred to use SV and SVO constructions to describe noncausative and causative events, respectively. Chinese adults understand that causative and noncausative events should typically be described using transitive and intransitive constructions, respectively. However, when inferring to which event (causative or noncausative) the given sentence should be mapped, their performance seems to be regulated by actual SV sentence usage in Chinese.     

Some syntactic determinants of sentential complexity,II : Verb structure

The effect of the lexical complexity of verbs on the processing of sentences was evaluated in two experiments. Verb complexity was indexed by the number of types of grammatical structure a verb permits (e.g., a verb may be transitive or intransitive and may permit various types of complement structures). Ss’ performances in paraphrasing sentences and in solving anagrams containing complex verbs were significantly poorer than their performances with the same sentences and anagrams containing less complex verbs.     

Long-term recognition memory for sentences

The present studies examined immediate and one-week delayed recognition performance for active and passive sentences. Recognition tests included distractor sentences wherein the logical subject, verb, of logical object of a sentence was replaced by a semantically confusable, visually confusable, or unrelated distractor. Results indicated that logical subjects, verbs, and logical objects of sentences were recognized equally well during immediate testing. During delayed testing, changes in the logical object or recipient of the action were not detected as well as verb changes of logical subject changes. The implications of these results for current sentence memory models were discussed.     

句子结构与控制动词类型对题元角色指派的影响

扩展论元依存模型认为：语序固定语言的题元角色指派依赖论元的语序线索; 论元线索与动词论元表征不一致时, 题元角色再分析会产生额外的加工负荷。为检验该模型, 本研究采用眼动记录方法, 实验为2 (句子结构：居中、前置) × 2 (控制动词类型：主语控制、宾语控制)被试内设计。通过操纵句子结构, 考察汉语读者对语序线索的依赖性; 通过操纵控制动词类型, 考察汉语论元线索与动词论元表征的一致性对题元角色指派的影响。结果发现：(1)前置结构的句子在名词1、名词2和动词区域的阅读时间和回视次数多于居中结构的句子; (2)宾语控制动词条件在动词和动词后区域的第二遍阅读时间和总回视次数多于主语控制动词条件; (3)在居中结构中, 宾语控制动词条件在名词2和动词区域的阅读时间和回视次数多于主语控制动词条件; 在前置结构中, 宾语控制动词条件在动词后区域的阅读时间多于主语控制动词条件。结果支持扩展论元依存模型。     

Event templates in the lexical representations of verbs

Four experiments support the hypothesis that syntactically relevant information about verbs is encoded in the lexicon in semantic event templates. A verb's event template represents the participants in an event described by the verb and the relations among the participants. The experiments show that lexical decision times are longer for verbs with more complex templates than verbs with less complex templates and that, for both transitive and intransitive sentences, sentences containing verbs with more complex templates take longer to process. In contrast, sentence processing times did not depend on the probabilities with which the verbs appear in transitive versus intransitive constructions in a large corpus of naturally produced sentences.     

The time course of anticipatory constraint integration

Several studies have demonstrated that as listeners hear sentences describing events in a scene, their eye movements anticipate upcoming linguistic items predicted by the unfolding relationship between scene and sentence. While this may reflect active prediction based on structural or contextual expectations, the influence of local thematic priming between words has not been fully examined. In Experiment 1, we presented verbs (e.g., arrest) in active (Subject–Verb–Object) sentences with displays containing verb-related patients (e.g., crook) and agents (e.g., policeman). We examined patient and agent fixations following the verb, after the agent role had been filled by another entity, but prior to bottom-up specification of the object. Participants were nearly as likely to fixate agents “anticipatorily” as patients, even though the agent role was already filled. However, the patient advantage suggested simultaneous influences of both local priming and active prediction. In Experiment 2, using passive sentences (Object–Verb–Subject), we found stronger, but still graded influences of role prediction when more time elapsed between verb and target, and more syntactic cues were available. We interpret anticipatory fixations as emerging from constraint-based processes that involve both non-predictive thematic priming and active prediction.     

When objects are close to me: Affordances in the peripersonal space

In the present study, we investigated, using language, which motor information is automatically activated by observing 3-D objects (i.e., manipulation vs. function) and whether this information is modulated by the objects' location in space. Participants were shown 3-D pictures of objects located in peripersonal versus extrapersonal space. Immediately after, they were presented with function, manipulation, or observation verbs (e.g., "to drink," "to grasp," "to look at") and were required to judge whether the verb was compatible with the presented object. We found that participants were slower with observation verbs than with manipulation and function verbs. With both function and manipulation verbs, participants were faster when objects were presented in reachable space. Interestingly, the fastest response times were recorded when participants read function verbs while objects were presented in the accessible space. Results suggest that artifacts are first conceived in terms of affordances linked to manipulation and use, and that affordances are differently activated, depending on context.     

Memory for general and specific sentences

Cued recall indicated that memory was better for sentences containing specific verbs (e.g., scratched) than for sentences containing general verbs (e.g., injured). When synonymic verb responses were included, however, the general-specific difference was eliminated. Also, for complete sentence recall, subject nouns were better retrieval cues than verbs or object nouns. nt]mis|This research was supported by National Science Foundation Research Grant GB-22664 to L. Starling Reid and by a grant to the author from the Denison University Faculty Development Activities Program. Thanks are due Bill Stehle and Larry Giordano, who assisted in data collection and analysis.     

Comprehending Noun Phrase Arguments and Adjuncts

Two experiments investigated how readers comprehend noun phrase (NP) arguments and adjuncts. Previous research suggested that argument phrases are processed more quickly than adjunct phrases (Clifton, Speer, & Abney, 1991; Kennison, 1999; Schütze & Gibson, 1999; Speer & Clifton, 1998). The present experiments investigated whether the type of verb in the sentence context could influence how NP arguments and adjuncts were processed. Reading time was measured on sentences containing NP arguments and adjuncts preceded either by verbs occurring most frequently with NP arguments (biased transitive verbs) or by verbs occurring most frequently without NP arguments (biased intransitive verbs) (e.g., Meredith read/performed every play/week.). In Experiment 1, reading time was measured using a self-paced phrase-by-phrase moving window. In Experiment 2, reading time was measured using eye tracking. The results of both experiments indicated that, following biased transitive verbs, NP arguments were processed more quickly than NP adjuncts. When NPs followed biased intransitive verbs, there was no significant difference between the processing time of NP arguments and adjuncts.