1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Linguistics in the Netherlands
  4. Volume 37, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 37, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0929-7332
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9919
PDF

Abstract

Abstract

Incremental comprehension of head-final constructions can reveal structural attachment preferences for ambiguous phrases. This study investigates how temporarily ambiguous PPs are processed in Dutch verb-final constructions. In ‘The contractor has on the roof terrace saved/worked’, the PP is locally ambiguous between attachment as argument and as adjunct. This ambiguity is resolved by the sentence-final verb. In a self-paced reading task, we manipulated the argument/adjunct status of the PP, and its position relative to the verb. While we found no reading-time differences between argument and adjunct PPs, we did find that transitive verbs, for which the PP is an argument, were read more slowly than intransitive verbs, for which the PP is an adjunct. We suggest that Dutch parsers have a preference for adjunct attachment of preverbal PPs, and discuss our findings in terms of incremental parsing models that aim to minimize costly reanalysis.

© Algemene Vereniging voor Taalwetenschap
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00036.coo
2020-10-27
2025-04-25

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/avt.00036.coo
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/avt.00036.coo.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00036.coo&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Abney, Steven P.
    1989 “A computational model of human parsing.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research18 (1): 129–144. 10.1007/BF01069051
     https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01069051 [Google Scholar]
  2. Baayen, R. Harald, Doug J. Davidson & Douglas M. Bates
    2008 “Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items.” Journal of Memory and Language59 (4): 390–412. 10.1016/j.jml.2007.12.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2007.12.005 [Google Scholar]
  3. Bader, Markus
    2011 “On being both head-initial and head-final.” Processing and producing head-final structuresed. byHiroko Yamashita, Yuki Hirose and Jerome L. Packard. 325–348. London: Springer.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Bates, Douglas M., Martin Mächler, Benjamin M. Bolker & Steven C. Walker
    2015 “Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4.” Journal of Statistical Software67 (1): 1–48. 10.18637/jss.v067.i01
     https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v067.i01 [Google Scholar]
  5. Boland, Julie E. & Austin Blodgett
    2006 “Argument status and PP-attachment.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research35 (5): 385–403. 10.1007/s10936‑006‑9021‑z
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-006-9021-z [Google Scholar]
  6. Chomsky, Noam
    1981 Lectures on government and binding: The Pisa lectures. Dordrecht: Foris.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Frazier, Lyn
    1987 “Sentence processing: A tutorial review.” Attention and performanceed. byMax Coltheart. 559–586. Hiltsdale, NJ: Ertbauin.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Frazier, Lyn & Charles Jr. Clifton
    1996 Construal. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Frazier, Lyn & Janet D. Fodor
    1978 “The sausage machine: A new two-stage parsing model.” Cognition6 (4), 291–325. 10.1016/0010‑0277(78)90002‑1
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(78)90002-1 [Google Scholar]
  10. Futrell, Richard, Kyle Mahowald & Edward Gibson
    2015 “Large-scale evidence of dependency length minimization in 37 languages.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences112 (33), 10336–10341. 10.1073/pnas.1502134112
     https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1502134112 [Google Scholar]
  11. Gibson, Edward
    1998 “Linguistic complexity: Locality of syntactic dependencies.” Cognition68: 1–76. 10.1016/S0010‑0277(98)00034‑1
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00034-1 [Google Scholar]
  12. Hale, John T.
    2011 “What a rational parser would do.” Cognitive Science, 35 (3): 399–443. 10.1111/j.1551‑6709.2010.01145.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01145.x [Google Scholar]
  13. Hunter, Tim & Robert Frank
    2014 “Eliminating rightward movement: Extraposition as flexible linearization of adjuncts.” Linguistic Inquiry45 (2): 227–267. 10.1162/LING_a_00154
     https://doi.org/10.1162/LING_a_00154 [Google Scholar]
  14. Husain, Samar, Shravan Vasishth & Narayanan Srinivasan
    2014 “Strong expectations cancel locality effects: Evidence from Hindi.” PLOS ONE9 (7): e100986. 10.1371/journal.pone.0100986
     https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100986 [Google Scholar]
  15. Jackendoff, Ray
    1977 X-bar syntax: A study of phrase structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Konieczny, Lars
    2000 “Locality and parsing complexity.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research29 (6): 627–645. 10.1023/A:1026528912821
     https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026528912821 [Google Scholar]
  17. Koster, Jan
    1975 “Dutch as an SOV Language.” Linguistic Analysis1: 111–136.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Levy, Roger, Evelina Fedorenko & Edward Gibson
    2013 “The syntactic complexity of Russian relative clauses.” Journal of Memory and Language69 (4): 461–495. 10.1016/j.jml.2012.10.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2012.10.005 [Google Scholar]
  19. Marslen-Wilson, William
    1973 “Linguistic structure and speech shadowing at very short latencies.” Nature244 (5417): 522. 10.1038/244522a0
     https://doi.org/10.1038/244522a0 [Google Scholar]
  20. Oostdijk, Nelleke, Martin Reynaert, Véronique Hoste & Ineke Schuurman
    2013 “The construction of a 500-million-word reference corpus of contemporary written Dutch.” Essential speech and language technology for Dutch: Results by the STEVIN-programmeed. byPeter Spyns and Jan Odijk. 219–247. London: Springer. 10.1007/978‑3‑642‑30910‑6_13
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30910-6_13 [Google Scholar]
  21. Phillips, Colin
    2003 “Linear order and constituency.” Linguistic Inquiry34 (1): 37–90. 10.1162/002438903763255922
     https://doi.org/10.1162/002438903763255922 [Google Scholar]
  22. Pritchett, Bradley L.
    1992 Grammatical competence and parsing performance. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. R Core Team
    R Core Team 2020 R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Rayner, Keith, Marcia Carlson & Lyn Frazier
    1983 “The interaction of syntax and semantics during sentence processing: Eye movements in the analysis of semantically biased sentences.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior22 (3): 358–374. 10.1016/S0022‑5371(83)90236‑0
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(83)90236-0 [Google Scholar]
  25. Ross, John R.
    1967 Constraints on variables in syntax. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  26. Schütze, Carson T. & Edward Gibson
    1999 “Argumenthood and English prepositional phrase attachment.” Journal of Memory and Language40 (3): 409–431. 10.1006/jmla.1998.2619
     https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1998.2619 [Google Scholar]
  27. Schütze, Carson T.
    1995 “PP Attachment and Argumenthood.” MIT Working Papers in Linguistics26: 95–151.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Shapiro, Lewis P., H. Nicholas Nagel & Beth A. Levine
    1993 “Preferences for a verb’s complements and their use in sentence processing.” Journal of Memory and Language31 (1): 96–114. 10.1006/jmla.1993.1006
     https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1993.1006 [Google Scholar]
  29. Speer, Shari R., & Charles Jr. Clifton
    1998 “Plausibility and argument structure in sentence comprehension.” Memory & Cognition26 (5): 965–978. 10.3758/BF03201177
     https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03201177 [Google Scholar]
  30. Swart, Henriëtte de
    2007 “A cross-linguistic discourse analysis of the Perfect.” Journal of Pragmatics39 (12): 2273–2307. 10.1016/j.pragma.2006.11.006
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2006.11.006 [Google Scholar]
  31. Vasishth, Shravan, Katja Suckow, Richard L. Lewis & Sabine Kern
    2010 “Short-term forgetting in sentence comprehension: Crosslinguistic evidence from verb-final structures.” Language and Cognitive Processes25 (4): 533–567. 10.1080/01690960903310587
     https://doi.org/10.1080/01690960903310587 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00036.coo
Loading
Incremental structure building of preverbal PPs in Dutch
Linguistics in the Netherlands 37, 38 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00036.coo
/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00036.coo
/content/journals/10.1075/avt.00036.coo
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): arguments and adjuncts; head-final constructions; parsing; PP attachment; self-paced reading

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error