Abstract
This paper presents an off-line experiment we conducted to investigate theinfluence of referentiality on relative clause (RC) interpretation in BrazilianPortuguese. RCs associated with complex NPs seem to be preferentiallyattached to a referential noun. This referentiality effect can be treated indiscourse terms (Gilboy, Sopena, Clifton & Frazier, 1995) or in syntacticsemanticterms (Bezerra, 2017; this paper). Our questionnaire tested theseapproaches using two types of complex NPs (occupational and kinshipNPs) and the results showed that the syntactic-semantic structure ofthese complex NPs can account for the referentiality effect reported in theliterature by Gilboy et al. (1995). Based on our results, we argue in favorof the syntactic-semantic approach and show that the discourse-orientedapproach lacks explanatory power.
Highlights
The ultimate question of the Sentence Processing area is how human beings are able to attribute an interpretation to a sentence
The chi-squared results fully support Gilboy et al.’s (1995): in the conditions a non-referential N2 (ANRN2) and BNRN2, in which the N2 is not introduced by an overt determiner, there was a preference for N1 modification; and in the conditions a referential N2 (ARN2) and BRN2, in which both the N1 and the N2 are introduced by an overt determiner, there was not a significant difference in the number of N1 and N2 responses, showing that both nouns were available for the relative clause
These results are in line with what we expected, except for the result of the condition BNRN2: in the condition ANRN2 the preference for N1 modification would be motivated by the fact that it corresponds to the simpler analysis available, since modifying the N2 would imply a revision of the syntactic-semantic analysis attributed to the N2 from a more generic reading towards a more specific one; in the conditions ARN2 and BRN2, we would predict that both nouns would be available in syntactic-semantic terms for the relative clause; in the condition BNRN2, we were expecting a preference for N2 modification, since the N2 seems to carry a more specific reading, asking for a restrictive modification that would support it
Summary
The ultimate question of the Sentence Processing area is how human beings are able to attribute an interpretation to a sentence. Along with a solid body of experimental and theorical research on sentence processing (Frazier & Fodor, 1978; Frazier, 1979; Frazier & Rayner, 1982; Frazier, 1987; Frazier, 1990; Frazier & Clifton, 1996, 1997), that the process of interpretation is preceded by the development of a syntactic representation – the parser, a syntactic processor, is responsible for attributing a syntactic representation to the linguistic input, based on which an interpretation can be achieved.
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