Monthly
8 1/2 x 11, illustrated
Founded: 1989
ISSN 0898-929X
E-ISSN 1530-8898
2010 Impact Factor: 5.357
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May 2010, Vol. 22, No. 5, Pages 1036-1053
Posted Online March 4, 2010.
(doi:10.1162/jocn.2009.21269)
© 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Interplay between Prosody and Syntax in Sentence Processing: The Case of Subject- and Object-control VerbsSara Bögels1, Herbert Schriefers1, Wietske Vonk1,2, Dorothee J. Chwilla1, and Roel Kerkhofs11Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands 2Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
This study addresses the question whether prosodic information can affect the choice for a syntactic analysis in auditory sentence processing. We manipulated the prosody (in the form of a prosodic break; PB) of locally ambiguous Dutch sentences to favor one of two interpretations. The experimental items contained two different types of so-called control verbs (subject and object control) in the matrix clause and were syntactically disambiguated by a transitive or by an intransitive verb. In Experiment 1, we established the default off-line preference of the items for a transitive or an intransitive disambiguating verb with a visual and an auditory fragment completion test. The results suggested that subject- and object-control verbs differently affect the syntactic structure that listeners expect. In Experiment 2, we investigated these two types of verbs separately in an on-line ERP study. Consistent with the literature, the PB elicited a closure positive shift. Furthermore, in subject-control items, an N400 effect for intransitive relative to transitive disambiguating verbs was found, both for sentences with and for sentences without a PB. This result suggests that the default preference for subject-control verbs goes in the same direction as the effect of the PB. In object-control items, an N400 effect for intransitive relative to transitive disambiguating verbs was found for sentences with a PB but no effect in the absence of a PB. This indicates that a PB can affect the syntactic analysis that listeners pursue. Cited byHyekyung Hwang, Karsten Steinhauer. (2011) Phrase Length Matters: The Interplay between Implicit Prosody and Syntax in Korean “Garden Path” Sentences. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23:11, 3555-3575 Online publication date: 1-Nov-2011. Abstract | Full Text | PDF (527 KB) | PDF Plus (526 KB) Efrat Pauker, Inbal Itzhak, Shari R. Baum, Karsten Steinhauer. (2011) Effects of Cooperating and Conflicting Prosody in Spoken English Garden Path Sentences: ERP Evidence for the Boundary Deletion Hypothesis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23:10, 2731-2751 Online publication date: 1-Oct-2011. Abstract | Full Text | PDF (842 KB) | PDF Plus (753 KB) Sara Bögels, Herbert Schriefers, Wietske Vonk, Dorothee J. Chwilla. (2011) The Role of Prosodic Breaks and Pitch Accents in Grouping Words during On-line Sentence Processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23:9, 2447-2467 Online publication date: 1-Sep-2011. Abstract | Full Text | PDF (605 KB) | PDF Plus (505 KB) Sara Bögels, Herbert Schriefers, Wietske Vonk, Dorothee J. Chwilla. (2011) Pitch accents in context: How listeners process accentuation in referential communication. Neuropsychologia 49:7, 2022-2036 Online publication date: 1-Jun-2011. CrossRef Mikael Roll, Merle Horne. (2011) Interaction of right- and left-edge prosodic boundaries in syntactic parsing. Brain ResearchOnline publication date: 1-Jun-2011. CrossRef Wei-Jun LI, Yu-Fang YANG. (2011) The Cognitive Processing of Prosodic Boundary and Its Related Brain Effect in Quatrain. Acta Psychologica Sinica 42:11, 1021-1032 Online publication date: 27-Jan-2011. CrossRef Sara Bögels, Herbert Schriefers, Wietske Vonk, Dorothee J. Chwilla. (2011) Prosodic Breaks in Sentence Processing Investigated by Event-Related Potentials : Prosodic Breaks in Sentence Processing. Language and Linguistics Compass 5:7, 424 CrossRef
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