prosodic weight versus information load in the rc attachment ambiguity
DESCRIPTION
Prosodic weight versus information load in the RC attachment ambiguity. CUNY GC • QC. Dianne Bradley, Eva Fernández & Dianne Taylor Graduate Center & Queens College • CUNY [email protected] 16th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing Cambridge MA ۰ 27-29 March 2003. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Dianne Bradley, Eva Fernández & Dianne Taylor
Graduate Center & Queens College • [email protected]
16th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence ProcessingCambridge MA ۰ 27-29 March 2003
Prosodic weight versus information load
in the RC attachment ambiguity
CUNY GC • QC
RC Attachment: IllustrationN1
The plot concerns the guardian of the prince
who was exiledfrom the country for decadesRC
La trama es sobre el guardián del príncipeque fue exiliado
del país por décadas
N2
RC-Length & Attachment: Accounts Informativeness Hypothesis
• e.g., Hemforth and colleagues
Implicit Prosody Hypothesis• Fodor and colleagues
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
Informativeness & RC-Length Informativeness Hypothesis
[Hemforth and colleagues]
• cf. Relativized Relevance (Frazier 1990) Predicate Proximity (Gibson et al.
1996)• The likelihood that modification applies to
an element central to the assertion increases with the modifier’s informativeness
Length Effects • N1 an argument of the main verb, cf. N2
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
mayinfluence syntactic ambiguity
resolution” (Fodor 1998, 2002)
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
Why Phrase RC Separately?
Balance1… {N1-of-N2}
{ RC }
Balance2{(S) V N1-of-N2}
{ RC }
RC-Privilege… }
{ [RC
Extra Weight in Remote Left Context?
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
e.g., The unusual plot concerns …
RoadmapBehavioral data: More N1 attachment?
RC LengthSubject Weight
Therefore:InformativenessBalance1Balance2RC-Privilege
Acoustic data: Phrase break?… N2 ] [ RCElsewhere
?
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
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.
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 overlookedthe computer system.
What was stolen? the stereo the computer
Questionnaire Participants N = 44, Queens College students US English speakers Language-history questionnaire, non-
nativespeakers excluded/replaced
Rejected/replaced for errors > 15% in fillers
Results: Preference Questionnaire
30
40
50
60
70
1 PWd 3 PWdsRelative Clause Length
% N
1 At
tach
men
t MX, 2 PWdsMX, 1 PWd
Relative Clause Length F1(1,40) = 24.95, p<.001 F2(1,32) = 30.12, p<.001Matrix Subject Weight F1(1,40) = 5.51, p<.05 F2(1,32) = 9.43, p<.01
Interaction F1 < 1 F2 < 1
Roadmap … so farBehavioral data: More N1 attachment?
RC LengthSubject Weight
Therefore:InformativenessBalance1Balance2RC-Privilege
Acoustic data: Phrase break?… N2 ] [ RCElsewhere
?
Overt Prosody StudyIn overt prosody, are sentences with
heavierRCs and/or heavier subjects,
systematically,likely to be phrased as … N2] [RC … ?
Procedure: Elicited production Measure: Duration
Elicited ProductionN = 8 native US English speakers —
5F, 3MN = 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…
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.
The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.
The plot concerns the guardian of the prince.The prince 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.
The guardianThe prince
The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.
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.
The unusual plot concerns the guardian of the prince.The prince was exiled from the country for decades.
1
Acoustic Analysis: Regions
The( unusual )
plot concerns theguardian
of
theprince
who wasexiled
( from the countryfor decades )
Wt S V N1 N2 RC1 RC3
Duration: Uniform acoustic signature of phrasal break
Acoustic Analysis: Regions
S ] [ V V ] [ N1 N1 ] [ N2 N2 ] [ RC
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
Wt S V N1 N2 RC1 RC3
Mea
n D
urat
ion
(mse
c)MX1, RC1 MX1, RC3MX2, RC1 MX2, RC3
N2] [RC
Region = N2
450 500 550 600 650 700 750
RC1
RC3
Mean Duration (msec)
MX2MX1
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
Roadmap: Destination ReportBehavioral data: More N1 attachment
RC LengthSubject Weight
Therefore:InformativenessBalance1Balance2RC-Privilege
Acoustic data: Phrase break
… N2 ] [ RCElsewhere
Our thanks to: Janet Dean Fodor Shukhan Ng CUNY Linguistics graduate students Fernanda Ferreira Research Institute for the Study ofL
anguage in an Urban Society