Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026

A Prediction Error-driven Retrieval Procedure for Destabilizing and Rewriting Maladaptive Reward Memories in Hazardous Drinkers
Published on: January 5, 2018
Processing Elided Verb Phrases with Flawed Antecedents: the Recycling Hypothesis
Ana Arregui1, Charles Clifton, Lyn Frazier
1University of Ottawa.
Abstract:
Traditional syntactic accounts of verb phrase ellipsis (e.g. "Jason laughed. Sam did [ ] too.") categorize as ungrammatical many sentences that language users find acceptable (they "undergenerate"); semantic accounts overgenerate. We propose that a processing theory, together with a syntactic account, does a better job of describing and explaining the data on verb phrase-ellipsis. Five acceptability judgment experiments supported a "VP recycling hypothesis," which claims that when a syntactically-matching antecedent is not available, the listener/reader creates one using the materials at hand. Experiments 1 and 2 used verb phrase ellipsis sentences with antecedents ranging from perfect (a verb phrase in matrix verb phrase position) to impossible (a verb phrase containing only a deverbal word). Experiments 3 and 4 contrasted antecedents in verbal versus nominal gerund subjects. Experiment 5 explored the possibility that speakers are particularly likely to go beyond the grammar and produce elided constituents without perfect matching antecedents when the antecedent needed is less marked than the antecedent actually produced. This experiment contrasted active (unmarked) and passive antecedents to show that readers seem to honor such a tendency.
More Related Videos
05:22Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies
Published on: May 9, 2019
06:35Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
Related Concept Videos
Framing Effects
Recycling Endosomes and Transcytosis
The recycling endosome is not a single organelle but an extensively tubulated network of recycling pathways. It functions in storing molecules or transporting them across...
Elaborative Rehearsals
The effectiveness of...
Confirmation Biases
Fundamental Attribution Error
Export of Misfolded Proteins out of the ER