Thematic processing in adjuncts: evidence from an eye tracking experiment.
Thematic processing in adjuncts: evidence from an eye tracking experiment.
We investigated thematic processing in sentences containing a prepositional phrase that was ambiguous between a locative and a temporal interpretation. We manipulated context (temporal or locative), target sentence (temporal or locative), and whether or not the main verb of the target and the context was repeated. Results showed that context dictated the participants' thematic expectations. Thematically, congruent target and context pairs were read faster than incongruent pairs. This effect was not modulated by verb repetition. We argue that wh -words cause readers to lodge semantically vacuous thematic roles in their discourse representation that bias a reader's interpretation of subsequent thematically ambiguous adjuncts in their discourse representation.
667-675
Liversedge, Simon.P.
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Pickering, M.J.
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Clayes, E.L.
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Branigan, H.P.
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September 2003
Liversedge, Simon.P.
3ebda3f3-d930-4f89-85d5-5654d8fe7dee
Pickering, M.J.
d58cd814-c2e0-4181-9472-a014c54610ce
Clayes, E.L.
f0c50550-5632-4133-bb01-d330557fdfcb
Branigan, H.P.
a10e662c-71ca-47a9-a3ce-8dce926d7aa0
Liversedge, Simon.P., Pickering, M.J., Clayes, E.L. and Branigan, H.P.
(2003)
Thematic processing in adjuncts: evidence from an eye tracking experiment.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10 (3), .
Abstract
We investigated thematic processing in sentences containing a prepositional phrase that was ambiguous between a locative and a temporal interpretation. We manipulated context (temporal or locative), target sentence (temporal or locative), and whether or not the main verb of the target and the context was repeated. Results showed that context dictated the participants' thematic expectations. Thematically, congruent target and context pairs were read faster than incongruent pairs. This effect was not modulated by verb repetition. We argue that wh -words cause readers to lodge semantically vacuous thematic roles in their discourse representation that bias a reader's interpretation of subsequent thematically ambiguous adjuncts in their discourse representation.
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Published date: September 2003
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Local EPrints ID: 55543
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/55543
ISSN: 1069-9384
PURE UUID: f371d407-de20-4102-90b5-12a63b31dec0
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Date deposited: 01 Aug 2008
Last modified: 07 Jan 2022 22:32
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Author:
Simon.P. Liversedge
Author:
M.J. Pickering
Author:
E.L. Clayes
Author:
H.P. Branigan
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