A Syntactic Bias in Scope Ambiguity Resolution in the Processing of English‐French Cardinality Interrogatives: Evidence for Informational Encapsulation

Abstract

This article presents a reading‐time study of scope resolution in the interpretation of ambiguous cardinality interrogatives in English‐French and in English and French native sentence processing. Participants were presented with a context, a self‐paced segment‐by‐segment presentation of a cardinality interrogative, and a numerical answer that respondents either accepted or rejected. Very narrowly distributed and interpretation‐dependent reading‐time asymmetries arose in English‐French processing and in French and English native processing. A syntactic account of scope resolution characterizes the reading‐time asymmetries produced by English‐French learners and differences between French and English native respondents. In contrast, a context‐driven theory of scope resolution encounters many severe problems that render its plausibility exceedingly remote.