Working memory, animacy, and verb class in the processing of relative clauses

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• 作者：Matthew J. Traxler ; Rihana S. Williams ; Shelley A. Blozis and Robin K. Morris
• 关键词：Sentence processing ; Syntax ; Working memory ; Relative clause ; Animacy ; Semantics
• 刊名：Journal of Memory and Language
• 出版年：2005
• 出版时间：2005
• 年：2005
• 卷：53
• 期：2
• 页码：204-224
• 全文大小：452 K

文摘

In three eye-movement monitoring experiments, participants’ working memory capacity was assessed and they read sentences containing subject-extracted and object-extracted relative clauses. In Experiment 1, sentences lacked helpful semantic cues, object-relatives were harder to process than subject relatives, and working memory capacity did not moderate syntactic complexity effects. In Experiments 2 and 3, categorical distinctions between critical nouns provided helpful semantic cues to syntactic structure and interpretation. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that helpful semantic cues reduced or eliminated syntactic complexity effects, and that this reduction was not produced by lexical properties of specific verbs. Further, in Experiment 2 working memory capacity moderated the interaction of syntactic complexity and semantic cues.