Prosody and the processing of filler-gap sentences

This study was designed to explore the effects of linguistic prosody on the processing of “filler-gap” sentences. We designed two experiments to determine first whether the sentence processor uses information contained in the prosodic contour of an utterance during on-line processing, and second the form that information may take. In Experiment 1, we found that prosody apparently influences when listeners posit gaps on-line. In Experiment 2, we obtained acoustic evidence that gaps are represented in the prosodic contour of an utterance. The results of this study support a view in which prosody contributes very early to on-line structure building mechanisms during sentence processing.

[1]  D Swinney,et al.  The role of structure in coreference assignment during sentence comprehension , 1989, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[2]  William E. Cooper,et al.  Syntax and Speech , 1980 .

[3]  M. Tanenhaus,et al.  Verb-specific constraints in sentence processing: Separating effects of lexical preference from garden-paths. , 1993 .

[4]  Lyn Frazier,et al.  The interaction of syntax and semantics during sentence processing: eye movements in the analysis of semantically biased sentences , 1983 .

[5]  M J Pickering,et al.  Processing syntactically ambiguous sentences: Evidence from semantic priming , 1993, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[6]  William E. Cooper,et al.  Fundamental Frequency in Sentence Production , 1981 .

[7]  William D. Marslen-Wilson,et al.  THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 1992,45A (1) 73-87 Prosodic Effects in Minimal Attachment , 2022 .

[8]  Elisabeth Selkirk,et al.  Phonology and syntax , 1984 .

[9]  R. Burchfield.  Frequency Analysis of English Usage: Lexicon and Grammar. By W. Nelson Francis and Henry Kučera with the assistance of Andrew W. Mackie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1982. x + 561 , 1985 .

[10]  K. Rayner,et al.  Making and correcting errors during sentence comprehension: Eye movements in the analysis of structurally ambiguous sentences , 1982, Cognitive Psychology.

[11]  Noam Chomsky.  Knowledge of language: its nature, origin, and use , 1988 .

[12]  Lewis P. Shapiro,et al.  Preferences for a Verb′s Complements and Their Use in Sentence Processing , 1993 .