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Prosodic weight versus information load in the RC attachment ambiguity

Prosodic weight versus information load in the RC attachment ambiguity. CUNY GC • QC. Dianne Bradley, Eva Fernández & Dianne Taylor Graduate Center & Queens College • CUNY DBradley@gc.cuny.edu 16th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing Cambridge MA ۰ 27-29 March 2003.

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Prosodic weight versus information load in the RC attachment ambiguity

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  1. Prosodic weight versus information load in the RC attachment ambiguity CUNY GC • QC Dianne Bradley, Eva Fernández & Dianne Taylor Graduate Center & Queens College • CUNY DBradley@gc.cuny.edu 16th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing Cambridge MA ۰27-29 March 2003

  2. RC Attachment: Illustration N1 N2 The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled from the country for decades RC La trama es sobre el guardián del príncipe que fue exiliado del país por décadas

  3. RC-Length & Attachment: Accounts • Informativeness Hypothesis • e.g., Hemforth and colleagues • Implicit Prosody Hypothesis • Fodor and colleagues

  4. RC-Length & RC-Content … who was exiled … who was exiled from the country for decades • Long RC has more lexical content, hence more informative than Short, necessarily? • Informativeness per se may influence the preferred attachment

  5. Informativeness & RC-Length • Informativeness Hypothesis [Hemforth and colleagues] • cf. Relativized Relevance (Frazier 1990) Predicate Proximity (Gibson et al. 1996) • The likelihood that modification applies toan element central to the assertion increases with the modifier’s informativeness • Length Effects • N1 an argument of the main verb, cf. N2

  6. Prosody & RC-Attachment • Implicit Prosody Hypothesis [Fodor and colleagues] • Attachment preferences in silent reading • “In silent reading, a default prosodic contour is projected onto the stimulus, and it may influence syntactic ambiguity resolution” (Fodor 1998, 2002)

  7. Prosody & RC-Length  Alignment: Optimally, prosodic phrase breaks and syntactic phrase breaks edge-align  If RC is separately phrased, N1 attachment (but not N2 attachment) satisfies alignment  Reconfigure syntax accordingly

  8. Balance1 … {N1-of-N2} { RC } Balance2 {(S) V N1-of-N2} { RC } RC-Privilege … } { [RC Why Phrase RC Separately?

  9. Informativeness Balance1 … {N1-of-N2} { RC } Balance2 {(S) V N1-of-N2} { RC } RC-Privilege … } { [RC PREDICTION Irrelevant No change in N1 attachment Irrelevant No change in N1 attachment Balance point moves leftward, e.g., … N1} {of-N2 RC} Less N1 attachment More likely, … N2} {RC … More N1 attachment Extra Weight in Remote Left Context? e.g., The unusual plot concerns …

  10. Roadmap Behavioral data: More N1 attachment? RC Length Subject Weight Therefore: Informativeness Balance1 Balance2 RC-Privilege Acoustic data: Phrase break? … N2 ] [ RC Elsewhere      ?   

  11. Questionnaire Materials • RC Length  Matrix-Subject Weight • RC has 1 versus 3 prosodic words • MX has 1 versus 2 prosodic words The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled. The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled …from the country for decades. The unusual plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled. The unusual plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled … from the country for decades. • N = 36 sentence quadruples • Assessed and adjusted to eliminate inherent plausibility bias favoring either N1 or N2

  12. Contextualized Plausibility Test “Circle one number to record your judgment of the relative plausibility of Sentences A and B, in the context set up by the initial sentence.” A>>B B>>A 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The plot concerns the guardian of the prince. A. The guardian was exiled. B. The prince was exiled.

  13. Questionnaire Procedure • “Reading comprehension test” • 36 targets, 108 fillers (1:3 ratio) • Comprehension question after each sentence • Example of target • The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled from the country for decades. • Who was exiled? the guardian the prince • Example of filler • The sneaky burglars took all the stereo equipment but overlooked • the computer system. • What was stolen? the stereo the computer

  14. Questionnaire Participants • N = 44, Queens College students • US English speakers • Language-history questionnaire, non-nativespeakers excluded/replaced • Rejected/replaced for errors > 15% in fillers

  15. Results: Preference Questionnaire Relative Clause Length F1(1,40) = 24.95, p<.001 F2(1,32) = 30.12, p<.001 Matrix Subject Weight F1(1,40) = 5.51, p<.05 F2(1,32) = 9.43, p<.01 Interaction F1 < 1 F2 < 1

  16. Roadmap … so far Behavioral data: More N1 attachment? RC Length Subject Weight Therefore: Informativeness Balance1 Balance2 RC-Privilege Acoustic data: Phrase break? … N2 ] [ RC Elsewhere      ?

  17. Overt Prosody Study In overt prosody, are sentences with heavier RCs and/or heavier subjects, systematically, likely to be phrased as … N2] [RC … ? • Procedure: Elicited production • Measure: Duration

  18. Elicited Production • N = 8 native US English speakers — 5F, 3M • N = 6  4 sentences,RC Length  Matrix-Subject Weight • RC = 1 versus 3 prosodic words…who was exiled ( from the country for decades ) • MX = 1 versus 2 prosodic wordsThe ( unusual ) plot…

  19. • Combine two simplex sentences into complex sentence with N1-of-N2-RC • Simplex sentence pair disambiguates attachment The plot concerns the guardian of the prince. The prince was exiled. The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.

  20. The plot concerns the guardian of the prince. The prince was exiled. The guardian The prince The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled. The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled. The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled. … the guardian of the princes who was exiled. … the guardians of the prince who was exiled. … the guardian of the princess who killed himself. … the guardian of the princess who killed herself.

  21. • RC is consistently attached to N2 • RC attached to site dictated by Late Closure • Cards stacked against the RC Privilege prediction The plot concerns the guardian of the prince. The prince was exiled. The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.

  22. 1 The unusual plot concerns the guardian of the prince. The prince was exiled from the country for decades.

  23. Acoustic Analysis: Regions Duration: Uniform acoustic signature of phrasal break RC3 Wt S V N1 N2 RC1 The( unusual ) plot concerns theguardianof theprince who wasexiled ( from the countryfor decades )

  24. Acoustic Analysis: Regions S ] [ V V ] [ N1 N1 ] [ N2 N2 ] [ RC

  25. N2] [RC

  26. Region = N2 RC: F1(1,7) = 11.46, p<.02 MX: F1(1,7) = 2.80, p=.138 F2(1,5) = 9.96, p<.05 F2(1,5) = 2.07, p=.209 Interaction MX x RC: F1 < 1, F2 (1,5) = 1.62, p > .25

  27.       Roadmap: Destination Report Behavioral data: More N1 attachment RC Length Subject Weight Therefore: Informativeness Balance1 Balance2 RC-Privilege Acoustic data: Phrase break … N2 ] [ RC Elsewhere  

  28. Our thanks to: • Janet Dean Fodor • Shukhan Ng • CUNY Linguistics graduate students • Fernanda Ferreira • Research Institute for the Study ofLanguage in an Urban Society

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