Processing correlates of lexical semantic complexity
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Published on: April 12, 2018
Silvia Gennari1, David Poeppel
1Language and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. sgen@lcnl.wisc.edu
Abstract:
This paper explores how verb meanings that differ in semantic complexity are processed and represented. In particular, we compare eventive verbs, which denote causally structured events, with stative verbs, which denote facts without causal structure. We predicted that the conceptually more complex eventive verbs should take longer to process than stative verbs. Two experiments, a lexical decision task and a self-paced reading study, confirmed this prediction. The findings suggest that (a) semantic complexity is reflected in processing time, (b) processing verb meanings involves activating properties of the event structure beyond participants' roles, and (c) more generally, lexical event structures, which subsume thematic roles, may mediate between syntactic knowledge and semantic interpretation.
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