The Interplay between Prosody and Syntax in Sentence Processing: The Case of Subject- and Object-control Verbs

This study addresses the question whether prosodic information can affect the choice for a syntactic analysis in auditory sentence processing. We manipulated the prosody (in the form of a prosodic break; PB) of locally ambiguous Dutch sentences to favor one of two interpretations. The experimental items contained two different types of so-called control verbs (subject and object control) in the matrix clause and were syntactically disambiguated by a transitive or by an intransitive verb. In Experiment 1, we established the default off-line preference of the items for a transitive or an intransitive disambiguating verb with a visual and an auditory fragment completion test. The results suggested that subject- and object-control verbs differently affect the syntactic structure that listeners expect. In Experiment 2, we investigated these two types of verbs separately in an on-line ERP study. Consistent with the literature, the PB elicited a closure positive shift. Furthermore, in subjec...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: JOCN
• Authors: Sara Bögels, Herbert Schriefers, Wietske Vonk, Dorothee J. Chwilla, Roel Kerkhofs
• Keywords: Disambiguating Verbs, JOCN 2010, Transitive Disambiguating Verbs, Verbs