Convergent probabilistic cues do not trigger syntactic adaptation in relative clause garden-path constructions
Dempsey, Jack
Loading…
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105595
Description
Title
Convergent probabilistic cues do not trigger syntactic adaptation in relative clause garden-path constructions
Author(s)
Dempsey, Jack
Issue Date
2019-06-06
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Christianson, Kiel
Department of Study
Educational Psychology
Discipline
Educational Psychology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.S.
Degree Level
Thesis
Keyword(s)
syntactic adaptation
syntactic satiation
probabilistic cues
syntactic parsing
sentence processing
Abstract
Previous work has ostensibly shown that readers rapidly adapt to a priori less predicted structures after exposure to unbalanced statistical input (e.g., a high number of reduced relative-clause garden path sentences) and that these readers grow to disfavor the a priori more frequent structure after exposure (Fine, Jaeger, Qian, & Farmer, 2013). However, recent work has failed to replicate effects indicating a penalty for the preferred, more frequent continuation, despite finding a speedup in syntactic repair times after initial exposure to the dispreferred, infrequent structure (Harrington-Stack, James, & Watson, 2018). The current study reports three self-paced reading experiments that tested whether co-occurring cues (explicit comprehension questions, preceding semantic cues, and font color) can help facilitate adaptation to reduced relative/main verb garden path sentences. Results suggest that readers do not overcome pre-existing predictive biases by rapidly adapting to statistically novel linguistic contexts. An emphasis is placed on the difference between task-specific syntactic satiation effects and actual expectation adaptation, the latter of which we argue can only be determined through a penalty for an a priori predicted structure after exposure to its counterpart in the case of garden path constructions.
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.
