Context and distance-to-disambiguation effects in ambiguity resolution: Evidence from grammaticality judgments of garden path sentences

Abstract

This study investigated whether single or multiple structures are constructed at the level of syntactic analysis for ambiguous strings. To this end, three experiments were conducted to determine the effects of various types of snytactic and nonsyntactic information on grammaticality judgments for garden path sentences. The results of Experiment 1, using a speeded grammaticality judgment task, were that context and length of the ambiguous region influenced the probability of calling a garden path sentence grammatical. In Experiment 2, even when given unlimited time to make grammaticality judgments, 40% of all long garden path sentences that required a less preferred analysis were called ungrammatical. Experiment 3 extended the length effects found in Experiments 1 and 2 to some additional types of garden path sentences. The results support a parsing model that is influenced by context and that constructs only a single interpretation of an ambiguous string at a time.