On-Line Reflexive Resolution in Japanese Causative Garden Path Sentences

This study explored the time course in which lexical information in causative verbs influences the identification of the antecedent of a Japanese reflexive pronoun, jibun. Since verb information specifies that the reflexive is bound to the indirect object despite its being ordinarily associated with the subject in Japanese sentences, this requires parsers to revise the syntactic representation they had previously formed. 42 students were required to identify quickly the antecedent when given a marker which was placed immediately after the reflexive, immediately at the end of the sentence following a verb, or 4 sec. after the end of the sentence. Correct identification was almost nil immediately after the reflexive, increasing to 20.3% correct immediately after the end of the sentence and 52.4% correct 4 sec. after the end of the sentence. This finding indicates that the verb-control information is not used immediately when parsing sentences in which the verb occurs at the end of the sentence. Thus, the products of moment-to-moment initial syntactic computation are not immediately mapped onto the final semantic interpretations.

[1]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  The comprehension processes and memory structures involved in anaphoric reference , 1980 .

[2]  F. R. Chang.  Active memory processes in visual sentence comprehension: Clause effects and pronominal reference , 1980, Memory & cognition.

[3]  E. J. O'Brien,et al.  Anaphoric inference during reading. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[4]  Julie E. Boland.  The role of verb argument structure in sentence processing: Distinguishing between syntactic and semantic effects , 1993, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.

[5]  Lyn Frazier,et al.  Syntactic processing: Evidence from dutch , 1987 .

[6]  Janet Dean Fodor,et al.  Empty categories in sentence processing , 1989 .

[7]  L. Shapiro,et al.  Verb effects during sentence processing. , 1991 .

[8]  G. Hickok,et al.  Modularity in locating Wh-gaps , 1992, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.

[9]  M. Tanenhaus,et al.  Levels of representation in the interpretation of anaphoric reference and instrument inference , 1990, Memory & cognition.

[10]  K. Rayner,et al.  Eye Movements and Anaphor Resolution: Effects of Antecedent Typicality and Distance , 1990, Language and speech.

[11]  Activation of the Antecedent by the Reflexive in Japanese: A Supplementary Control Experiment , 1992 .

[12]  Susan M. Garnsey,et al.  Evidence for the immediate use of verb control information in sentence processing , 1990 .

[13]  Christopher T. Kello,et al.  Verb-specific constraints in sentence processing: separating effects of lexical preference from garden-paths. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[14]  M. A. Britt,et al.  Parsing in discourse: Context effects and their limits , 1992 .

[15]  D. Swinney,et al.  On the temporal course of gap-filling during comprehension of verbal passives , 1993, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[16]  L P Shapiro,et al.  Verb effects during sentence processing. , 1991, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[17]  B. MacWhinney,et al.  Measuring inhibition and facilitation from pronouns , 1990 .

[18]  R. Ratcliff,et al.  The activation of antecedent information during the processing of anaphoric reference in reading. , 1983 .

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

[20]  H. Nagata.  Temporal course of activation of the antecedent by the reflexive in syntactically ambiguous sentences in Japanese , 1991 .

[21]  T. Bever,et al.  The psychological reality of linguistically defined gaps , 1989 .

[22]  John C. Trueswell,et al.  The role of thematic structures in interpretation and parsing. , 1989 .

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

[24]  Hiroshi Nagata,et al.  Unimmediate construction of syntactic structure for garden path sentences in Japanese , 1993 .

[25]  Alan Garnham,et al.  Effects of context in human sentence parsing: Evidence against a discourse-based proposal mechanism. , 1992 .

[26]  Thomas G. Bever,et al.  Linguistic anaphors, levels of representation, and discourse , 1988 .

[27]  Robin K. Morris,et al.  Eye movements and on-line language comprehension processes , 1989 .

[28]  Don C. Mitchell,et al.  Verb guidance and other lexical effects in parsing , 1989 .

[29]  D. Swinney,et al.  Chapter 14 The Resolution of Interdeterminacy During Language Comprehension: Perspectives on Modularity in Lexical, Structural and Pragmatic Process , 1991 .

[30]  Rosemary J. Stevenson,et al.  The Comprehension of Anaphoric Relations , 1986 .

[31]  R. Job,et al.  Some observations on the universality of the late-closure strategy , 1993 .

[32]  Richard Shillcock,et al.  Cognitive models of speech processing : the Second Sperlonga Meeting , 1993 .

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

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

[35]  A. Caramazza,et al.  Comprehension of Anaphoric Pronouns. , 1977 .

[36]  Reflexive Resolution in Parsing Japanese Logophoric and Nonlogophoric Sentences , 1995 .

[37]  C. Reid,et al.  Parsing Complements: Comments on the Generality of the Principle of Minimal Attachment , 1989 .

[38]  J. Henderson,et al.  Use of verb information in syntactic parsing: evidence from eye movements and word-by-word self-paced reading. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[39]  Janet Dean Fodor,et al.  Processing empty categories: A question of visibility. , 1993 .

[40]  James L. McClelland,et al.  Constituent Attachment and Thematic Role Assignment in Sentence Processing: Influences of Content-Based Expectations , 1988 .

[41]  H. Nagata.  Verb-Control Information in Parsing Japanese Reflexive Sentences , 1993 .