Information Structure and Word Order Canonicity in the Comprehension of Spanish Texts: An Eye-Tracking Study

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Linguistics
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Word order alternation is a key marker for information structure and discourse organization.
• Previous research indicates Spanish sentence comprehension is harder with non-canonical word orders, attributed to prominence miscomputation.
• Prior studies analyzed isolated sentences, neglecting the pragmatic role of word order alternation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of information structure in comprehending sentences with alternative word orders and varying verb types.
• To explore the interplay between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in sentence processing.
• To examine how context affects prominence computation and argument interpretation.

Main Methods:

• An eye-tracking experiment was conducted to analyze reading patterns.
• Early and late eye-movement measures were recorded.
• Accuracy and response times to comprehension questions were collected.

Main Results:

• Information structure significantly impacted sentence comprehension, evident in late eye-movement measures and offline measures (reading time, response time).
• Difficulties in prominence computation persisted even when sentences followed a contextually motivated non-canonical word order.
• Contextual information did not fully mitigate the cognitive cost associated with prominence miscomputation.

Conclusions:

• Information structure plays a crucial role in sentence comprehension, affecting processing fluency and interpretation.
• Prominence computation is a fundamental cognitive mechanism for argument interpretation, robust even in the face of contextual cues.
• The study highlights the complex interaction between syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors in language processing.