The use of context in resolving syntactic ambiguity: structural and semantic influences

Verb bias facilitates parsing of temporarily ambiguous sentences, but it is unclear when and how comprehenders use probabilistic knowledge about the combinatorial properties of verbs in context. In a self-paced reading experiment, participants read direct object/sentential complement sentences. Read...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language, cognition and neuroscience cognition and neuroscience, 2020-01, Vol.35 (1), p.43-57
Main Authors: Bousquet, Kathryn, Swaab, Tamara Y., Long, Debra L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceptability
Ambiguity
Bias
Context
Lexicon
local ambiguity
Noun phrases
Parsing
Reading processes
Semantics
surprisal
syntactic complexity
Syntactic structures
Syntax semantics relationship
Verb bias
Verbs
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Verb bias facilitates parsing of temporarily ambiguous sentences, but it is unclear when and how comprehenders use probabilistic knowledge about the combinatorial properties of verbs in context. In a self-paced reading experiment, participants read direct object/sentential complement sentences. Reading time in the critical region was investigated as a function of three forms of bias: structural bias (the frequency with which a verb appears in direct object/sentential complement sentences), lexical bias (the simple co-occurrence of verbs and other lexical items), and global bias (obtained from norming data about the use of verbs with specific noun phrases). For reading times at the critical word, structural bias was the only reliable predictor. However, global bias was superior to structural and lexical bias at the post-critical word and for offline acceptability ratings. The results suggest that structural information about verbs is available immediately, but that context-specific, semantic information becomes increasingly informative as processing proceeds.
ISSN:2327-3798
2327-3801
DOI:10.1080/23273798.2019.1622750