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Functional clauses and sentence segmentation

J M Carroll, M K Tanenhaus

    Journal of Speech and Hearing Research
    |December 1, 1978
    PubMed
    Summary
    This summary is machine-generated.

    Functionally complete clauses, which have full grammatical relations, are better units for sentence perception. This finding suggests that clause completeness, not just structure, influences how we process sentences.

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    Area of Science:

    • Psycholinguistics
    • Cognitive Psychology
    • Sentence Perception

    Background:

    • Understanding how humans segment sentences during real-time perception is crucial for cognitive science.
    • Previous research often focused on structural properties of linguistic units.
    • The role of functional completeness in clause segmentation remained less explored.

    Purpose of the Study:

    • To investigate whether functionally complete clauses serve as better perceptual units than functionally incomplete ones.
    • To determine if functional completeness influences the perceived boundaries of clauses during sentence processing.
    • To challenge purely structural accounts of sentence perception units.

    Main Methods:

    • Two experiments were conducted where participants listened to biclausal sentences containing a brief tone.

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  • Participants then transcribed the sentence and indicated the tone's location.
  • Tones were placed relative to the clause break, and the initial clause was manipulated for functional completeness (presence/absence of full grammatical relations).

    • Main Results:

    • Experiment 1 showed significantly more tone mislocations towards the clause break and the end of the initial clause when it was functionally complete.
    • Experiment 2 replicated these findings while controlling for deep- and surface-structure variables.
    • The results consistently indicate a preference for functionally complete clauses as segmentation units.

    Conclusions:

    • Functionally complete clauses are superior segmentation units during sentence perception compared to functionally incomplete ones.
    • Sentence perception relies on functional properties of clauses, not solely on structural characteristics.
    • Current structural theories of sentence perception units are insufficient to explain these findings.