Processing the noun phrase versus sentence coordination ambiguity: Thematic information does not completely eliminate processing difficulty

Abstract

When faced with the noun phrase (NP) versus sentence (S) coordination ambiguity as in, for example, The thief shot the jeweller and the cop hellip, readers prefer the reading with NP-coordination (e.g., "The thief shot the jeweller and the cop yesterday") over one with two conjoined sentences (e.g., "The thief shot the jeweller and the cop panicked"). A corpus study is presented showing that NP-coordinations are produced far more often than S-coordinations, which in frequency-based accounts of parsing might be taken to explain the NP-coordination preference. In addition, we describe an eye-tracking experiment investigating S-coordinated sentences such as Jasper sanded the board and the carpenter laughed, where the poor thematic fit between carpenter and sanded argues against NP-coordination. Our results indicate that information regarding poor thematic fit was used rapidly, but not without leaving some residual processing difficulty. This is compatible with claims that thematic information can reduce but not completely eliminate garden-path effects

Deeper than shallow: Evidence for structure-based parsing biases in second-language sentence processing

“…Such results would match well with both self-paced reading and eye-tracking studies showing that readers prefer the conjoined NP interpretation over the coordinate clause interpretation in both English (Frazier & Clifton, 1997) and Dutch (Frazier, 1987b;Hoeks, Hendriks, Vonk, Brown, & Hagoort, 2006). These findings are consistent with the principle of minimal attachment, which directs the parser to posit the fewest syntactic nodes necessary in the attachment of a new constituent.…”

“…This slowdown at the ambiguous NP was not found in Hoeks et al (2006), the only other eye-tracking study to investigate the processing of these sentence types. The processing difficulty at the region of the verb in the second clause was entirely expected and can be taken to index reanalysis of the sentence from a single-clause interpretation to a dual-clause interpretation.…”

“…These findings are consistent with the principle of minimal attachment, which directs the parser to posit the fewest syntactic nodes necessary in the attachment of a new constituent. In coordination ambiguity sentences such as those above, this principle leads the parser to continue with a single-clause analysis of the sentence (and thus to interpret the structurally ambiguous NP as part of the direct object of this sentence) until it is forced to reject and revise this analysis (for more on this interpretation, Frazier, 1987b;Frazier & Clifton, 1997;Hoeks et al, 2006). Note the similarity between this construction and sentences involving subject/object ambiguities: After Bill drank the water proved to be poisoned.…”

Comparisons of Online Reading Paradigms: Eye Tracking, Moving-Window, and Maze

“…Similarly, in Dutch, a language typologically similar to English, both SPR (in its phrase-by-phrase incarnation; Frazier 1987) and eye-tracking (Hoeks et al 2006) experiments have yielded results consistent with an NP-coordination bias.…”

Discourse, Syntax, and Prosody: The Brain Reveals an Immediate Interaction

“…Previous research in the visual domain using off-line and on-line measures-in particular, reading times and eye tracking-has shown that readers are initially inclined to interpret the ambiguous NP (the policeman) as part of the NP-coordination the squatter and the policeman (Hoeks, Hendriks, Vonk, Brown, & Hagoort, 2005;Frazier, 1987). This is reflected in processing difficulty in S-coordinated sentences at or right after the disambiguating lexical element.…”