TY - THES A1 - Stone, Kate T1 - Predicting long-distance lexical content in German verb-particle constructions N2 - A large body of research now supports the presence of both syntactic and lexical predictions in sentence processing. Lexical predictions, in particular, are considered to indicate a deep level of predictive processing that extends past the structural features of a necessary word (e.g. noun), right down to the phonological features of the lexical identity of a specific word (e.g. /kite/; DeLong et al., 2005). However, evidence for lexical predictions typically focuses on predictions in very local environments, such as the adjacent word or words (DeLong et al., 2005; Van Berkum et al., 2005; Wicha et al., 2004). Predictions in such local environments may be indistinguishable from lexical priming, which is transient and uncontrolled, and as such may prime lexical items that are not compatible with the context (e.g. Kukona et al., 2014). Predictive processing has been argued to be a controlled process, with top-down information guiding preactivation of plausible upcoming lexical items (Kuperberg & Jaeger, 2016). One way to distinguish lexical priming from prediction is to demonstrate that preactivated lexical content can be maintained over longer distances. In this dissertation, separable German particle verbs are used to demonstrate that preactivation of lexical items can be maintained over multi-word distances. A self-paced reading time and an eye tracking experiment provide some support for the idea that particle preactivation triggered by a verb and its context can be observed by holding the sentence context constant and manipulating the predictabilty of the particle. Although evidence of an effect of particle predictability was only seen in eye tracking, this is consistent with previous evidence suggesting that predictive processing facilitates only some eye tracking measures to which the self-paced reading modality may not be sensitive (Staub, 2015; Rayner1998). Interestingly, manipulating the distance between the verb and the particle did not affect reading times, suggesting that the surprisal-predicted faster reading times at long distance may only occur when the additional distance is created by information that adds information about the lexical identity of a distant element (Levy, 2008; Grodner & Gibson, 2005). Furthermore, the results provide support for models proposing that temporal decay is not major influence on word processing (Lewandowsky et al., 2009; Vasishth et al., 2019). In the third and fourth experiments, event-related potentials were used as a method for detecting specific lexical predictions. In the initial ERP experiment, we found some support for the presence of lexical predictions when the sentence context constrained the number of plausible particles to a single particle. This was suggested by a frontal post-N400 positivity (PNP) that was elicited when a lexical prediction had been violated, but not to violations when more than one particle had been plausible. The results of this study were highly consistent with previous research suggesting that the PNP might be a much sought-after ERP marker of prediction failure (DeLong et al., 2011; DeLong et al., 2014; Van Petten & Luka, 2012; Thornhill & Van Petten, 2012; Kuperberg et al., 2019). However, a second experiment in a larger sample experiment failed to replicate the effect, but did suggest the relationship of the PNP to predictive processing may not yet be fully understood. Evidence for long-distance lexical predictions was inconclusive. The conclusion drawn from the four experiments is that preactivation of the lexical entries of plausible upcoming particles did occur and was maintained over long distances. The facilitatory effect of this preactivation at the particle site therefore did not appear to be the result of transient lexical priming. However, the question of whether this preactivation can also lead to lexical predictions of a specific particle remains unanswered. Of particular interest to future research on predictive processing is further characterisation of the PNP. Implications for models of sentence processing may be the inclusion of long-distance lexical predictions, or the possibility that preactivation of lexical material can facilitate reading times and ERP amplitude without commitment to a specific lexical item. N2 - Eine große Anzahl an Forschungen unterstützt nun sowohl das Vorkommen syntaktischer als auch lexikalischer Vorhersagen bei der Satzverarbeitung. Insbesondere lexikalische Vorhersagen gelten als Indikator für eine tiefe Ebene bei der prädiktiven Satzverarbeitung, die sich über die strukturellen Merkmale eines notwendigen Wortes (z.B. Substantiv) bis hin zu den phonologischen Merkmalen der lexikalischen Identität eines bestimmten Wortes erstreckt (z.B. /kite/; DeLong et al., 2005). Die Evidenz für lexikalische Vorhersagen konzentriert sich jedoch in der Regel auf Vorhersagen in sehr lokalen Umgebungen wie zum Beispiel das angrenzende Wort oder die angrenzenden Wörter (DeLong et al., 2005; Van Berkum et al., 2005; Wicha et al., 2004). Vorhersagen in solchen lokalen Umgebungen sind womöglich nicht unterscheidbar von lexikalischem Priming, das vorübergehend und unkontrolliert ist und könnten als solches lexikalische Elemente primen, die mit dem Kontext nicht kompatibel sind (z.B. Kukona et al., 2014). Die prädiktive Verarbeitung wurde als ein kontrollierter Prozess verstanden, bei dem top-down verarbeitete Informationen die Präaktivierung plausibler bevorstehender lexikalischer Elemente steuern (Kuperberg & Jaeger, 2016). Eine Möglichkeit, lexikalisches Priming von Vorhersagen zu unterscheiden, besteht darin, zu zeigen, dass präaktivierte lexikalische Inhalte über größere Entfernungen beibehalten werden können. In dieser Dissertation werden trennbare deutsche Partikelverben verwendet, um zu zeigen, dass die Präaktivierung lexikalischer Elemente über Mehrwortdistanzen aufrechterhalten werden kann. Ein selbstbestimmtes Leseexperiment und ein Eyetracking-Experiment liefern eine gewisse Bestätigung für die Idee, dass die Präaktivierung von Partikeln, ausgelöst von einem Verb und dessen Kontext, beobachtet werden kann, indem der Satzkontext konstant gehalten und die Vorhersagbarkeit des Partikels manipuliert wird. Obwohl der Nachweis eines Effekts der Partikelvorhersagbarkeit nur im Eyetracking zu sehen war, stimmt dies mit früheren Erkenntnissen überein, die darauf hindeuten, dass die prädiktive Verarbeitung nur einige Eyetracking-Messungen erleichtert, für die die selbstbestimmte Lesemodalität möglicherweise nicht sensitiv genug ist (Staub, 2015; Rayner, 1998). Interessanterweise hatte die Manipulation des Abstands zwischen dem Verb und dem Partikel keinen Einfluss auf die Lesezeiten, was darauf hindeutet, dass die durch die Surprisal-Theorie vorhergesagten schnelleren Lesezeiten bei großem Abstand nur dann auftreten können, wenn der zusätzliche Abstand durch Informationen erzeugt wird, die Informationen über die lexikalische Identität eines entfernten Elements hinzufügen (Levy, 2008; Grodner & Gibson, 2005). Darüber hinaus liefern die Ergebnisse Unterstützung für Modelle, die vorschlagen, dass der zeitliche Aktivierungsverfall keinen großen Einfluss auf die Wortverarbeitung hat (Lewandowsky et al., 2009; Vasishth et al., 2019). Im dritten und vierten Experiment wurden ereigniskorrelierte Potentiale (EKP) als Methode zum Nachweis spezifischer lexikalischer Vorhersagen verwendet. Im ersten EKP-Experiment fanden wir eine gewisse Bestätigung für das Vorhandensein lexikalischer Vorhersagen, wenn der Satzkontext die Anzahl der plausiblen Partikel auf ein einziges Partikel beschränkte. Dies wurde durch eine frontale Post-N400-Positivität (PNP) angedeutet, die hervorgerufen wurde, wenn eine lexikalische Vorhersage verletzt worden war, aber nicht bei Verletzungen, wenn mehr als ein Partikel plausibel gewesen war. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie stimmen in hohem Maße mit früheren Untersuchungen überein, die darauf hindeuten, dass die PNP ein sehr gesuchter EKP-Marker für das Scheitern von Vorhersagen sein könnte (DeLong et al., 2011; DeLong et al., 2014; Van Petten & Luka, 2012; Thornhill & Van Petten, 2012; Kuperberg et al., 2020). Ein zweites Experiment mit einer größeren Stichprobe konnte den Effekt jedoch nicht replizieren, deutete aber darauf hin, dass die Beziehung der PNP zur prädiktiven Verarbeitung möglicherweise noch nicht vollständig verstanden ist. Die Evidenz für lexikalische Fernvorhersagen war nicht schlüssig. Die Schlussfolgerung, die aus den vier Experimenten gezogen wurde, ist, dass eine Präaktivierung der lexikalischen Einträge von plausiblen, bevorstehenden Partikeln stattgefunden hat und über weite Strecken aufrechterhalten wurde. Die erleichternde Wirkung dieser Präaktivierung am Partikel scheint daher nicht das Ergebnis eines vorübergehenden lexikalischen Primings zu sein. Die Frage, ob diese Präaktivierung auch zu lexikalischen Vorhersagen eines bestimmten Partikels führen kann, bleibt jedoch unbeantwortet. Von besonderem Interesse für zukünftige Forschung zur prädiktiven Verarbeitung ist die weitere Charakterisierung der PNP. Implikationen für Satzverarbeitungsmodelle sind beispielsweise die Einbeziehung von lexikalischen Fernvorhersagen oder die Möglichkeit, dass die Präaktivierung von lexikalischem Material die Lesezeiten und die EKP-Amplitude ohne Bindung an ein bestimmtes lexikalisches Element erleichtern kann. T2 - Lexikalische Vorhersagen in Partikelverb-Konstruktionen des Deutschen KW - sentence processing KW - prediction KW - particle verbs KW - preactivation KW - ERP KW - eye tracking KW - self-paced reading KW - EKP KW - Partikelverben KW - Preaktivierung KW - Vorhersagen KW - selbstbestimmtes Lesen KW - Satzverarbeitung KW - Eyetracking Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-476798 ER - TY - THES A1 - Schunack, Silke T1 - Processing of non-canonical word orders in an L2 T1 - Verarbeitung von nichtkanonischen Wortfolgen in der L2 BT - when small changes make no big difference BT - wenn kleine Änderungen keine große Unterschiede machen N2 - This thesis investigates the processing of non-canonical word orders and whether non-canonical orders involving object topicalizations, midfield scrambling and particle verbs are treated the same by native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers. The two languages investigated are Norwegian and German. 32 L1 Norwegian and 32 L1 German advanced learners of Norwegian were tested in two experiments on object topicalization in Norwegian. The results from the online self-paced reading task and the offline agent identification task show that both groups are able to identify the non-canonical word order and show a facilitatory effect of animate subjects in their reanalysis. Similarly high error rates in the agent identification task suggest that globally unambiguous object topicalizations are a challenging structure for L1 and L2 speakers alike. The same participants were also tested in two experiments on particle placement in Norwegian, again using a self-paced reading task, this time combined with an acceptability rating task. In the acceptability rating L1 and L2 speakers show the same preference for the verb-adjacent placement of the particle over the non-adjacent placement after the direct object. However, this preference for adjacency is only found in the L1 group during online processing, whereas the L2 group shows no preference for either order. Another set of experiments tested 33 L1 German and 39 L1 Slavic advanced learners of German on object scrambling in ditransitive clauses in German. Non-native speakers accept both object orders and show neither a preference for either order nor a processing advantage for the canonical order. The L1 group, in contrast, shows a small, but significant preference for the canonical dative-first order in the judgment and the reading task. The same participants were also tested in two experiments on the application of the split rule in German particle verbs. Advanced L2 speakers of German are able to identify particle verbs and can apply the split rule in V2 contexts in an acceptability judgment task in the same way as L1 speakers. However, unlike the L1 group, the L2 group is not sensitive to the grammaticality manipulation during online processing. They seem to be sensitive to the additional lexical information provided by the particle, but are unable to relate the split particle to the preceding verb and recognize the ungrammaticality in non-V2 contexts. Taken together, my findings suggest that non-canonical word orders are not per se more difficult to identify for L2 speakers than L1 speakers and can trigger the same reanalysis processes as in L1 speakers. I argue that L2 speakers’ ability to identify a non-canonical word order depends on how the non-canonicity is signaled (case marking vs. surface word order), on the constituents involved (identical vs. different word types), and on the impact of the word order change on sentence meaning. Non-canonical word orders that are signaled by morphological case marking and cause no change to the sentence’s content are hard to detect for L2 speakers. N2 - Diese Arbeit untersucht die Verarbeitung nichtkanonischer Wortfolgen und ob nichtkanonische Wortfolgen, die Objekttopikalisierung, Mittelfeldscrambling und Partikelverben beinhalten, von Muttersprachlern (L1) und Fremdsprachenlernern (L2) gleichermaßen verarbeitet werden. Die untersuchten Sprachen sind Norwegisch und Deutsch. 32 norwegische Muttersprachler und 32 fortgeschrittene deutsche Norwegischlerner wurden in zwei Experimenten zur Objekttopikalisierung im Norwegischen getestet. Die Resultate des Leseexperiments und der Agensidentifikation zeigen, dass beide Gruppen in der Lage sind die nichtkanonische Wortfolge zu identifizieren und einen fördernden Effekt von belebten Subjekten auf ihre Reanalyse zeigen. Ähnlich hohe Fehlerrate in der Agensidentifikation suggerieren, dass global unambige Objekttopikalisierungen eine anspruchsvolle Struktur für L1- und L2-Sprecher sind. Dieselben Teilnehmer wurden auch in zwei Experimenten zur Platzierung von Partikeln im Norwegischen getestet. Es wurde wieder ein Leseexperiment durchgeführt, diesmal zusammen mit einem Akzeptabilitätsrating. In diesem Rating zeigen L1- und L2-Sprecher die gleiche Präferenz für die verbnahe Platzierung der Partikel gegenüber der Platzierung nach dem direkten Objekt. Diese Präferenz findet sich im Leseexperiment nur in den Daten der L1-Gruppe, die L2-Gruppe zeigt dort keine Präferenz für eine der beiden Reihenfolgen. Eine weitere Gruppe Experimente testete 33 deutsche Muttersprachler und 39 fortgeschrittene slawische Deutschlerner zum Objektscrambling in deutschen ditransitiven Sätzen. Fremdsprachenlerner akzeptieren beide möglichen Reihenfolgen und zeigen keine Präferenz oder schnellere Verarbeitung für die kanonische Reihenfolge. Die L1-Gruppe zeigt eine numerisch kleine, aber signifikante Präferenz für die kanonische Dativ-Akkusativ-Folge im Akzeptabilitätsrating und dem Leseexperiment. Dieselben Teilnehmer wurden auch in zwei Experimenten zur Anwendung der Trennungsregel bei trennbaren Verben im Deutschen getestet. Fortgeschrittenen L2-Sprecher des Deutschen können trennbare Verben identifizieren und die Trennregel in V2-Kontexten wie dem Akzeptabilitätsrating genauso anwenden wie Muttersprachler. Allerdings zeigt die L2-Gruppe keine Sensibilität gegenüber der Grammatikalitätsmanipulation in der Leseaufgabe. Sie scheinen die zusätzliche lexikalische Information der Partikel wahrzunehmen, können jedoch getrennte Partikel nicht mit dem vorhergehenden Verb verbinden und die Ungrammatikalität der Trennung in Nicht-V2-Kontexten erkennen. Hierin unterscheiden sie sich von Mutterprachlern. Auf der Basis meiner Ergebnisse scheinen nichtkanonische Wortfolgen nicht per se schwieriger zu identifizieren zu sein für Fremdsprachlerner als für Muttersprachler und können dieselben Reanalyseprozesse auslösen. Ich argumentiere, dass die Fähigkeit von L2-Sprechern nichtkanonische Wortfolgen zu identifizieren davon abhängt, wie diese signalisiert werden (morphologische Kasusmarkierung vs. Oberflächenwordfolge), von den involvierten Konstituenten (gleiche vs. verschiedene Wortarten) und dem Einfluss der Änderung der Wortfolge auf die Satzbedeutung. Nichtkanonische Wortfolgen, die durch morphologische Kasusmarkierung signalisiert werden und keine Änderung der Satzbedeutung verursachen sind schwer zu identifizieren für Fremdsprachenlerner. KW - L2 sentence processing KW - object topicalization KW - scrambling KW - particle verbs KW - Norwegian KW - German KW - self-paced reading KW - acceptability judgments KW - Satzverarbeitung KW - Objekttopikalisierung KW - Scrambling KW - Partikelverben KW - Norwegisch KW - Leseexperiment KW - Akzeptabilitätsbewertung Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-103750 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Safavi, Molood S. A1 - Husain, Samar A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Dependency Resolution Difficulty Increases with Distance in Persian Separable Complex Predicates BT - Evidence for Expectation and Memory-Based Accounts JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Delaying the appearance of a verb in a noun-verb dependency tends to increase processing difficulty at the verb; one explanation for this locality effect is decay and/or interference of the noun in working memory. Surprisal, an expectation-based account, predicts that delaying the appearance of a verb either renders it no more predictable or more predictable, leading respectively to a prediction of no effect of distance or a facilitation. Recently, Husain et al. (2014) suggested that when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is predictable (strong predictability), increasing argument-verb distance leads to facilitation effects, which is consistent with surprisal; but when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is not predictable (weak predictability), locality effects are seen. We investigated Husain et al.'s proposal using Persian complex predicates (CPs), which consist of a non-verbal element—a noun in the current study—and a verb. In CPs, once the noun has been read, the exact identity of the verb is highly predictable (strong predictability); this was confirmed using a sentence completion study. In two self-paced reading (SPR) and two eye-tracking (ET) experiments, we delayed the appearance of the verb by interposing a relative clause (Experiments 1 and 3) or a long PP (Experiments 2 and 4). We also included a simple Noun-Verb predicate configuration with the same distance manipulation; here, the exact identity of the verb was not predictable (weak predictability). Thus, the design crossed Predictability Strength and Distance. We found that, consistent with surprisal, the verb in the strong predictability conditions was read faster than in the weak predictability conditions. Furthermore, greater verb-argument distance led to slower reading times; strong predictability did not neutralize or attenuate the locality effects. As regards the effect of distance on dependency resolution difficulty, these four experiments present evidence in favor of working memory accounts of argument-verb dependency resolution, and against the surprisal-based expectation account of Levy (2008). However, another expectation-based measure, entropy, which was computed using the offline sentence completion data, predicts reading times in Experiment 1 but not in the other experiments. Because participants tend to produce more ungrammatical continuations in the long-distance condition in Experiment 1, we suggest that forgetting due to memory overload leads to greater entropy at the verb. KW - locality KW - expectation KW - surprisal KW - entropy KW - Persian KW - complex predicates KW - self-paced reading KW - eye-tracking Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00403 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 7 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Safavi, Molood S. A1 - Husain, Samar A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Dependency Resolution Difficulty Increases with Distance in Persian Separable Complex Predicates BT - Evidence for Expectation and Memory-Based Accounts N2 - Delaying the appearance of a verb in a noun-verb dependency tends to increase processing difficulty at the verb; one explanation for this locality effect is decay and/or interference of the noun in working memory. Surprisal, an expectation-based account, predicts that delaying the appearance of a verb either renders it no more predictable or more predictable, leading respectively to a prediction of no effect of distance or a facilitation. Recently, Husain et al. (2014) suggested that when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is predictable (strong predictability), increasing argument-verb distance leads to facilitation effects, which is consistent with surprisal; but when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is not predictable (weak predictability), locality effects are seen. We investigated Husain et al.'s proposal using Persian complex predicates (CPs), which consist of a non-verbal element—a noun in the current study—and a verb. In CPs, once the noun has been read, the exact identity of the verb is highly predictable (strong predictability); this was confirmed using a sentence completion study. In two self-paced reading (SPR) and two eye-tracking (ET) experiments, we delayed the appearance of the verb by interposing a relative clause (Experiments 1 and 3) or a long PP (Experiments 2 and 4). We also included a simple Noun-Verb predicate configuration with the same distance manipulation; here, the exact identity of the verb was not predictable (weak predictability). Thus, the design crossed Predictability Strength and Distance. We found that, consistent with surprisal, the verb in the strong predictability conditions was read faster than in the weak predictability conditions. Furthermore, greater verb-argument distance led to slower reading times; strong predictability did not neutralize or attenuate the locality effects. As regards the effect of distance on dependency resolution difficulty, these four experiments present evidence in favor of working memory accounts of argument-verb dependency resolution, and against the surprisal-based expectation account of Levy (2008). However, another expectation-based measure, entropy, which was computed using the offline sentence completion data, predicts reading times in Experiment 1 but not in the other experiments. Because participants tend to produce more ungrammatical continuations in the long-distance condition in Experiment 1, we suggest that forgetting due to memory overload leads to greater entropy at the verb. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 290 KW - Persian KW - complex predicates KW - expectation KW - eye-tracking KW - locality KW - self-paced reading KW - surprisal KW - entropy Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90728 SP - 1 EP - 15 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reifegerste, Jana A1 - Hauer, Franziska A1 - Felser, Claudia T1 - Agreement processing and attraction errors in aging BT - evidence from subject-verb agreement in German JF - Aging, neuropsychology, and cognition : a journal on normal and dysfunctional development N2 - Effects of aging on lexical processing are well attested, but the picture is less clear for grammatical processing. Where age differences emerge, these are usually ascribed to working-memory (WM) decline. Previous studies on the influence of WM on agreement computation have yielded inconclusive results, and work on aging and subject-verb agreement processing is lacking. In two experiments (Experiment 1: timed grammaticality judgment, Experiment 2: self-paced reading + WM test), we investigated older (OA) and younger (YA) adults’ susceptibility to agreement attraction errors. We found longer reading latencies and judgment reaction times (RTs) for OAs. Further, OAs, particularly those with low WM scores, were more accepting of sentences with attraction errors than YAs. OAs showed longer reading latencies for ungrammatical sentences, again modulated by WM, than YAs. Our results indicate that OAs have greater difficulty blocking intervening nouns from interfering with the computation of agreement dependencies. WM can modulate this effect. KW - Subject-verb agreement KW - attraction errors KW - aging KW - grammaticality judgment KW - self-paced reading Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13825585.2016.1251550 SN - 1382-5585 SN - 1744-4128 VL - 24 IS - 6 SP - 672 EP - 702 PB - Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pan, Hui-Yu A1 - Schimke, Sarah A1 - Felser, Claudia T1 - Referential context effects in non-native relative clause ambiguity resolution JF - International journal of bilingualism : cross-disciplinary, cross-linguistic studies of language behavior N2 - We report the results from two experiments investigating how referential context information affects native and non-native readers' interpretation of ambiguous relative clauses in sentences such as The journalist interviewed the assistant of the inspector who was looking very serious. The preceding discourse context was manipulated such that it provided two potential referents for either the first (the assistant) or the second (the inspector) of the two noun phrases that could potentially host the relative clause, thus biasing towards either an NP1 or an NP2 modification reading. The results from an offline comprehension task indicate that both native English speakers' and German and Chinese-speaking ESL learners' ultimate interpretation preferences were reliably influenced by the type of referential context. In contrast, in a corresponding self-paced-reading task we found that referential context information modulated only the non-native participants' disambiguation preferences but not the native speakers'. Our results corroborate and extend previous findings suggesting that non-native comprehenders' initial analysis of structurally ambiguous input is strongly influenced by biasing discourse information. KW - Second language KW - sentence processing KW - ambiguity resolution KW - referential context KW - relative clause KW - self-paced reading Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006913515769 SN - 1367-0069 SN - 1756-6878 VL - 19 IS - 3 SP - 298 EP - 313 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - GEN A1 - Pan, Hui-Yu A1 - Schimke, Sarah A1 - Felser, Claudia T1 - Referential context effects in non-native relative clause ambiguity resolution T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - We report the results from two experiments investigating how referential context information affects native and non-native readers’ interpretation of ambiguous relative clauses in sentences such as The journalist interviewed the assistant of the inspector who was looking very serious. The preceding discourse context was manipulated such that it provided two potential referents for either the first (the assistant) or the second (the inspector) of the two noun phrases that could potentially host the relative clause, thus biasing towards either an NP1 or an NP2 modification reading. The results from an offline comprehension task indicate that both native English speakers’ and German and Chinese-speaking ESL learners’ ultimate interpretation preferences were reliably influenced by the type of referential context. In contrast, in a corresponding self-paced-reading task we found that referential context information modulated only the non-native participants’ disambiguation preferences but not the native speakers’. Our results corroborate and extend previous findings suggesting that non-native comprehenders’ initial analysis of structurally ambiguous input is strongly influenced by biasing discourse information. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 398 KW - second language KW - sentence processing KW - ambiguity resolution KW - referential context KW - relative clause KW - self-paced reading Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-404785 IS - 398 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paape, Dario A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Local Coherence and Preemptive Digging-in Effects in German JF - Language and speech N2 - SOPARSE predicts so-called local coherence effects: locally plausible but globally impossible parses of substrings can exert a distracting influence during sentence processing. Additionally, it predicts digging-in effects: the longer the parser stays committed to a particular analysis, the harder it becomes to inhibit that analysis. We investigated the interaction of these two predictions using German sentences. Results from a self-paced reading study show that the processing difficulty caused by a local coherence can be reduced by first allowing the globally correct parse to become entrenched, which supports SOPARSE’s assumptions. KW - Local coherence KW - digging-in effects KW - self-paced reading KW - SOPARSE KW - sentence processing KW - German Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830915608410 SN - 0023-8309 SN - 1756-6053 VL - 59 SP - 387 EP - 403 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - GEN A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Local coherence and preemptive digging-in effects in German T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - SOPARSE predicts so-called local coherence effects: locally plausible but globally impossible parses of substrings can exert a distracting influence during sentence processing. Additionally, it predicts digging-in effects: the longer the parser stays committed to a particular analysis, the harder it becomes to inhibit that analysis. We investigated the interaction of these two predictions using German sentences. Results from a self-paced reading study show that the processing difficulty caused by a local coherence can be reduced by first allowing the globally correct parse to become entrenched, which supports SOPARSE’s assumptions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 417 KW - local coherence KW - digging-in effects KW - self-paced reading KW - SOPARSE KW - sentence processing KW - German Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-405337 IS - 417 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Does antecedent complexity affect ellipsis processing? BT - An empirical investigation N2 - In two self-paced reading experiments, we investigated the effect of changes in antecedent complexity on processing times for ellipsis. Pointer- or “sharing”-based approaches to ellipsis processing (Frazier & Clifton 2001, 2005; Martin & McElree 2008) predict no effect of antecedent complexity on reading times at the ellipsis site while other accounts predict increased antecedent complexity to either slow down processing (Murphy 1985) or to speed it up (Hofmeister 2011). Experiment 1 manipulated antecedent complexity and elision, yielding evidence against a speedup at the ellipsis site and in favor of a null effect. In order to investigate possible superficial processing on part of participants, Experiment 2 manipulated the amount of attention required to correctly respond to end-of-sentence comprehension probes, yielding evidence against a complexity-induced slowdown at the ellipsis site. Overall, our results are compatible with pointer-based approaches while casting doubt on the notion that changes antecedent complexity lead to measurable differences in ellipsis processing speed. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 350 KW - antecedent complexity KW - ellipsis processing KW - memory pointer KW - self-paced reading KW - Bayes factor Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-403373 ER -