Priming word order by thematic roles: No evidence for an additional involvement of phrase structure

Abstract

Three experiments are reported that studied the priming of word order in German. Experiment 1 demonstrated priming of the order of case-marked verb arguments. However, order of noun phrases and order of thematic roles were confounded. In Experiment 2, we therefore aimed at disentangling the impact of these two possible factors. By using primes that differed from targets in phrase structure but were parallel with regard to the order of thematic roles, we nevertheless found priming demonstrating the critical impact of thematic roles. Experiment 3 replicated the priming effects from Experiments 1 and 2 within participants and revealed no evidence for a modulation of priming by phrase structure. Consequently, our findings suggest that word order priming crucially depends on the structural outline of thematic roles rather than on the linearization of phrases.

Grammatical encoding and learning in agrammatic aphasia: Evidence from structural priming

“…Further, the magnitude of thematic priming was similar regardless of the presence of animacy cues, suggesting that animacy did not have an independent effect on thematic mapping. These findings are consistent with previous reports of thematic priming in healthy speakers (Chang et al, 2003; Hare & Goldberg, 1999; Köhne et al, 2014; Pappert & Pechmann, 2014; Salamoura & Williams, 2007). …”

“…Priming of thematic representations, independent of phrase structure, has been shown for healthy speakers (Bernolet, Hartsuiker, & Pickering, 2009; Carminati, van Gompel, Scheepers, & Arai, 2008; Chang, Bock, & Goldberg, 2003; Hare & Goldberg, 1999; Köhne et al, 2014; Pappert & Pechmann, 2014; Salamoura & Williams, 2007). Chang and colleagues (2003) examined priming of sentences (e.g., 1) which are syntactically similar (NP V NP PP), but differ in the postverbal mapping between thematic roles and syntactic structures (Theme-Location vs. Location-Theme).The authors found that the Theme-Location structure was elicited significantly more frequently following Theme-Location, compared to Location-Theme, primes, and vice versa.…”

“…For example, priming of syntactic structures without overlap of lexical items implies that people have mental representations of abstract syntax independent of lexical items (Bock, 1986, 1989; Bock & Loebell, 1990). Further, the results of structural priming studies have contributed substantially to the understanding of how conceptual information (e.g., animacy, thematic roles) is mapped onto syntactic structure during sentence production (Bock, Loebell, & Morey, 1992; Branigan, Pickering, & Tanaka, 2008; Cai, Pickering, & Branigan, 2012; Köhne, Pickering, & Branigan, 2014; Pappert & Pechmann, 2014). In recent years, structural priming has also been argued to play a critical role in implicit language learning throughout the lifespan (Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006; Dell & Chang, 2014).…”

“…In contrast, agrammatic speakers tend to exhibit relatively spared use of animacy information during sentence production, producing few role-reversal errors in semantically-irreversible sentences in which the subject and object have different animacy features (e.g., The boy painted the picture ) (Saffran et al, 1980). Models of normal sentence production differ with respect to how conceptual-semantic information (thematic roles, animacy) is mapped onto syntactic structure (Bock et al, 1992; Branigan et al, 2008; Cai et al, 2012; Köhne et al, 2014; Pappert & Pechmann, 2014), and the abovementioned findings from aphasia suggest distinct mapping processes for thematic roles and animacy. Other errors produced by agrammatic speakers, such as omission and substitution of function words and grammatical morphology, point to deficits in morphosyntactic encoding (Caplan & Hanna, 1998; Faroqi-Shah & Thompson, 2003).…”

“…The authors suggested that thematic priming effects emerge only for sentences that share a phrase structure (Chang et al, 2003). However, there is evidence suggesting that thematic mappings can be primed despite syntactic dissimilarities between prime and target sentences (Bernolet et al, 2009; Carminati et al, 2008; Hare & Goldberg, 1999; Pappert & Pechmann, 2014; Salamoura & Williams, 2007). For example, Hare and Goldberg (1999; cf.…”