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Related Experiment Videos

The influence of referential processing on sentence complexity.

Tessa Warren1, Edward Gibson

  • 1Psychology Department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 01003, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. tessa@psych.umass.edu

Cognition
|June 28, 2002
PubMed
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Sentence complexity is influenced by referential processing, specifically the

Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Sentence complexity is theorized to relate to the locality of syntactic integrations.
  • Gibson (1998) proposed measuring locality by the number of intervening discourse referents.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the impact of referential processing on sentence complexity.
  • To test, modify, and extend Gibson's (1998) claims regarding sentence complexity.
  • To explore the role of noun phrase types in object-extracted relative clauses.

Main Methods:

  • Five experiments were conducted, manipulating noun phrases in subject positions of relative clauses.
  • Experiments 1, 2, and 3 utilized questionnaires to assess sentence complexity.
  • Experiments 4 and 5 employed self-paced reading to measure sentence processing.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Experiment 3 specifically examined quantifier effects in nested relative clauses.

    • Main Results:

    • Sentence complexity correlated more strongly with the Givenness status of the embedded subject than its novelty.
    • Findings suggest a discourse-processing-based distance metric for locality.
    • Evidence supports discourse-based accounts over purely similarity-based models of structural complexity.

    Conclusions:

    • Referential processing, particularly Givenness, plays a crucial role in perceived sentence complexity.
    • The study provides evidence for a discourse-processing-based approach to understanding locality in syntax.
    • Results challenge purely structural accounts of sentence complexity, highlighting the importance of discourse context.