Bound to be easier? The negative prefix and sentence comprehension

The effects of the negative prefix on sentence comprehension were examined by means of a verification task. The results showed that (a) the negative prefix increases comprehension difficulty even when it is the only negative in a sentence, (b) prefixal negation is easier than sentence negation (as provided by the word not), and (c) the combination of “not plus prefix” is in some respects treated as two negatives and in others as an affirmative. The results are consistent with the views that the linguistic motivation for prefixation is the relative difficulty of sentence negation and that the comprehension mechanism is predisposed to deal with unmarked forms.

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