Dianne Bradley, Eva Fernández & Dianne Taylor

Graduate Center & Queens College • CUNYDBradley@gc.cuny.edu

16th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence ProcessingCambridge MA ۰ 27-29 March 2003

Prosodic weight versus information load

in the RC attachment ambiguity

CUNY GC • QC

RC Attachment: IllustrationN1

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince

who was exiledfrom the country for decadesRC

La trama es sobre el guardián del príncipeque fue exiliado

del país por décadas

N2

RC-Length & Attachment: Accounts Informativeness Hypothesis

• e.g., Hemforth and colleagues

Implicit Prosody Hypothesis• Fodor and colleagues

RC-Length & RC-Content

… who was exiled… who was exiled from the country for decades

Long RC has more lexical content, hence more informative than Short, necessarily?

Informativeness per se may

influence the preferred attachment

Informativeness & RC-Length Informativeness Hypothesis

[Hemforth and colleagues]

• cf. Relativized Relevance (Frazier 1990) Predicate Proximity (Gibson et al.

1996)• The likelihood that modification applies to

an element central to the assertion increases with the modifier’s informativeness

Length Effects • N1 an argument of the main verb, cf. N2

Prosody & RC-Attachment Implicit Prosody Hypothesis

[Fodor and colleagues]

• Attachment preferences in silent reading• “In silent reading, a default prosodic

contour is projected onto the stimulus, and it

mayinfluence syntactic ambiguity

resolution” (Fodor 1998, 2002)

Prosody & RC-Length Alignment: Optimally, prosodic

phrase breaks and syntactic phrase breaks edge-align

If RC is separately phrased, N1 attachment (but not N2 attachment) satisfies alignment

Reconfigure syntax accordingly

Why Phrase RC Separately?

Balance1… {N1-of-N2}

{ RC }

Balance2{(S) V N1-of-N2}

{ RC }

RC-Privilege… }

{ [RC

Extra Weight in Remote Left Context?

Informativeness

Balance1… {N1-of-N2}

{ RC }

Balance2{(S) V N1-of-N2}

{ RC }

RC-Privilege… } { [RC

PREDICTION• Irrelevant• No change in N1 attachment

• Irrelevant• No change in N1 attachment

• Balance point moves leftward, e.g., … N1} {of-N2 RC}

• Less N1 attachment

• More likely, … N2} {RC …• More N1 attachment

e.g., The unusual plot concerns …

RoadmapBehavioral data: More N1 attachment?

RC LengthSubject Weight

Therefore:InformativenessBalance1Balance2RC-Privilege

Acoustic data: Phrase break?… N2 ] [ RCElsewhere

?

Questionnaire Materials RC Length Matrix-Subject Weight

•RC has 1 versus 3 prosodic words •MX has 1 versus 2 prosodic words

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled. The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled …

from the country for decades.The unusual plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled. The unusual plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled …

from the country for decades.

N = 36 sentence quadruples•Assessed and adjusted to eliminate inherent

plausibility bias favoring either N1 or N2

Contextualized Plausibility Test

“Circle one number to record your judgment of the relative plausibility of Sentences A and B, in the context set up by the initial sentence.”A>>B B>>A 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince.

A. The guardian was exiled.B. The prince was exiled.

Questionnaire Procedure “Reading comprehension test” 36 targets, 108 fillers (1:3 ratio) Comprehension question after each sentence

Example of target The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled from the country for decades.

Who was exiled? the guardian the prince

Example of filler The sneaky burglars took all the stereo equipment but overlookedthe computer system.

What was stolen? the stereo the computer

Questionnaire Participants N = 44, Queens College students US English speakers Language-history questionnaire, non-

nativespeakers excluded/replaced

Rejected/replaced for errors > 15% in fillers

Results: Preference Questionnaire

30

40

50

60

70

1 PWd 3 PWdsRelative Clause Length

% N

1 At

tach

men

t MX, 2 PWdsMX, 1 PWd

Relative Clause Length F1(1,40) = 24.95, p<.001 F2(1,32) = 30.12, p<.001Matrix Subject Weight F1(1,40) = 5.51, p<.05 F2(1,32) = 9.43, p<.01

Interaction F1 < 1 F2 < 1

Roadmap … so farBehavioral data: More N1 attachment?

RC LengthSubject Weight

Therefore:InformativenessBalance1Balance2RC-Privilege

Acoustic data: Phrase break?… N2 ] [ RCElsewhere

?

Overt Prosody StudyIn overt prosody, are sentences with

heavierRCs and/or heavier subjects,

systematically,likely to be phrased as … N2] [RC … ?

Procedure: Elicited production Measure: Duration

Elicited ProductionN = 8 native US English speakers —

5F, 3MN = 6 4 sentences,

RC Length Matrix-Subject Weight•RC = 1 versus 3 prosodic words

…who was exiled ( from the country for decades )

•MX = 1 versus 2 prosodic wordsThe ( unusual ) plot…

Combine two simplex sentences into complex sentence with N1-of-N2-RC

Simplex sentence pair disambiguates attachment

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince.The prince was exiled.

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince.The prince was exiled.

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.

… the guardian of the princes who was exiled.… the guardians of the prince who was exiled.

… the guardian of the princess who killed himself.… the guardian of the princess who killed herself.

The guardianThe prince

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.

RC is consistently attached to N2• RC attached to site dictated by Late

Closure• Cards stacked against the RC Privilege

prediction

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince.The prince was exiled.

The plot concerns the guardian of the prince who was exiled.

The unusual plot concerns the guardian of the prince.The prince was exiled from the country for decades.

1

Acoustic Analysis: Regions

The( unusual )

plot concerns theguardian

of

theprince

who wasexiled

( from the countryfor decades )

Wt S V N1 N2 RC1 RC3

Duration: Uniform acoustic signature of phrasal break

Acoustic Analysis: Regions

S ] [ V V ] [ N1 N1 ] [ N2 N2 ] [ RC

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Wt S V N1 N2 RC1 RC3

Mea

n D

urat

ion

(mse

c)MX1, RC1 MX1, RC3MX2, RC1 MX2, RC3

N2] [RC

Region = N2

450 500 550 600 650 700 750

RC1

RC3

Mean Duration (msec)

MX2MX1

RC: F1(1,7) = 11.46, p<.02 MX: F1(1,7) = 2.80, p=.138 F2(1,5) = 9.96, p<.05 F2(1,5) = 2.07, p=.209

Interaction MX x RC: F1 < 1, F2 (1,5) = 1.62, p > .25

Roadmap: Destination ReportBehavioral data: More N1 attachment

RC LengthSubject Weight

Therefore:InformativenessBalance1Balance2RC-Privilege

Acoustic data: Phrase break

… N2 ] [ RCElsewhere

Our thanks to: Janet Dean Fodor Shukhan Ng CUNY Linguistics graduate students Fernanda Ferreira Research Institute for the Study ofL

anguage in an Urban Society