Reading processes during syntactic analysis and reanalysis.

Abstract

Abstract We conducted two experiments to examine the processing of garden path sentences such as While the boy scratched the dog yawned loudly. We varied the ambiguous phrase of such sentences so that it was either short (the dog), long due to the inclusion of a relative clause (the dog that was hairy), or long due to the inclusion of prenominal adjectives (the big and hairy dog). The subjects' task was to read each sentence while their eye movements were monitored and then judge whether the sentence was grammatical. We found that early closure sentences were judged grammatical less often than were late closure sentences, and sentences with a long ambiguous phrase, particularly one made long through the insertion of a relative clause, were judged grammatical less often than were those with a short ambiguous phrase. The reading time data, however, showed a curious pattern. Reading times on the disambiguating word of the sentences (yawned in the above example) were longer for early closure than for late closure sentences, as expected, but reading times were shorter for sentences with a long ambiguous phrase. We argue that the latter finding reflects subjects' tendency to read more quickly as they proceed through a sentence. We suggest that researchers interpret any studies showing differences in the processing of syntactically easy and difficult constructions with extreme caution, unless the words being compared in these studies are preceded by the same number of words in the different experimental conditions.Resume Nous avons effectue deux experiences sur le traitement des phrases trompe - l'oeil telles While the boy scratched the dog yawned loudly. Nous avons varie la formulation ambigue de ces phrases pour qu'elle soit breve (the dog), longue en raison de l'insertion d'une proposition relative (the dog that was hairy) ou longue par l'insertion d'adjectifs anteposes (the big and hairy dog). Les sujets devaient lire chacune des phrases pendant que leurs mouvements oculaires etaient enregistres, puis ils devaient juger de leur grammaticalite. Nous avons constate que les phrases a clo@ture ha@tive etaient jugees moins souvent grammaticales que les phrases reposant sur le principe de clo@ture tardive. Nous avons egalement constate que les phrases ayant une formulation longue et ambigue, en particulier lorsqu'une proposition relative y etait inseree, etaient jugees grammaticales moins souvent que celles dont la formulation etait courte et ambigue. Un patron etrange ressort des temps de lecture. Comme prevu, les temps de lecture enregistres pour le terme desambiguisant des phrases (yawned dans l'exemple cidessus) etaient plus longs dans le cas des phrases a clo@ture ha@tive; en revanche, ils etaient plus courts pour les phrases longues et ambigues. Ce resultat montre, a notre avis, que la vitesse de lecture des sujets tend a s'accroi@tre d'un bout a l'autre de la phrase. Nous invitons les chercheurs a interpreter avec force circonspection toutes les etudes revelant des differences dans le traitement des constructions syntaxiquement complexes et simples, a moins que les mots qui y sont compares soient precedes du me@me nombre de mots dans les differentes conditions experimentales.Reading involves a number of inter - related processes. Readers must access the lexical reprentations of words and combine them so as to reflect the overall meaning of the sentence. For example, consider the ambiguous sentence Mary saw the boy with binoculars. The phrase with binoculars could function either as the modifier of the verb phrase that includes saw, indicating that Mary was the one in possession of the binoculars, or as the modifier of boy, in which case the boy is the one with the binoculars. These different syntactic attachments of the phrase with binoculars have different semantic consequences, resulting in different truth conditions for the two possible semantic interpretations of the ambiguous sentence. An important process during reading, then, is to create phrases and assign them to their appropriate grammatical roles, a process we will refer to as parsing. …