University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The prominence of referring expressions: message and lexical level effects

Lam, Tuan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/34366

Description

Title
The prominence of referring expressions: message and lexical level effects
Author(s)
Lam, Tuan
Issue Date
2012-09-18T21:13:31Z
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Watson, Duane G.
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Watson, Duane G.
Committee Member(s)
  • Dell, Gary S.
  • Federmeier, Kara D.
  • Fisher, Cynthia L.
Department of Study
Psychology
Discipline
Psychology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Prosody
  • Prominence
  • language production
  • Reference
  • Korean
  • Lexical
Abstract
In conversation, speakers produce some words with greater intensity, longer duration, and higher fundamental frequency (F0) than other words. By making different words in a sentence more prominent than other words, a speaker can change the meaning implied by a sentence. This thesis explores the relationship between processing in the language production system and the prominence of referring expressions. In particular, this thesis focuses on the effect of processing at the message and lexical levels of language production. Across seven experiments, I examine three factors that affect prominence: predictability, repetition, and partner identity. Based upon these the results, I argue that these factors can be separated into factors that operate at the level of the message and factors that operate at the level of lexical access. Furthermore, the results suggest that message level factors and lexical level factors affect prominence in different ways: lexical level factors lead to differences in spoken duration cross-linguistically whereas message level factors manifest differently across different languages.
Graduation Semester
2012-08
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34366
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2012 Tuan Lam

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