Heaviness vs. Newness: The Effects of Structural Complexity and Discourse Status on Constituent Ordering

Variations in postverbal constituent ordering have been attributed to both grammatical complexity (heaviness) and discourse status (newness), although few studies compare the two factors explicitly. Through corpus analysis and experimentation, we demonstrate that both factors simultaneously and inde...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language (Baltimore) 2000-03, Vol.76 (1), p.28-55
Main Authors: Arnold, Jennifer E., Losongco, Anthony, Wasow, Thomas, Ginstrom, Ryan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambiguity
Carrots
Cognitive Processes
Comparative analysis
Computational Linguistics
Crayons
Descriptive studies and applied theories
Discourse
Discourse Analysis
English
Grammar
Language
Language Processing
Linguistics
Referents
Structural Analysis (Linguistics)
Syntactics
Syntax
Verbs
Words
Citations: Items that cite this one
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Summary:Variations in postverbal constituent ordering have been attributed to both grammatical complexity (heaviness) and discourse status (newness), although few studies compare the two factors explicitly. Through corpus analysis and experimentation, we demonstrate that both factors simultaneously and independently influence word order in two English constructions. While past investigations of these factors have focused on their effects in language comprehension, we argue that postponing heavy and new constituents facilitates processes of planning and production.
ISSN:0097-8507
1535-0665
1535-0665
DOI:10.1353/lan.2000.0045