Prosody and parsing in a double PP construction in Hebrew
Item
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Title
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Prosody and parsing in a double PP construction in Hebrew
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:df740b030497:11140
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identifier
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11387
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Creator
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Webman Shafran, Ronit,
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Contributor
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Janet D. Fodor
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Date
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2011
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Linguistics
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Abstract
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It is a standard finding that speakers reliably produce prosodic cues to clause boundaries and listeners use these cues in parsing sentences. However, considerable uncertainty remains regarding whether the same applies to syntactic phrase boundaries. A long series of studies in the parsing literature on ambiguous PP attachment constructions, such as Susan hit the man with the umbrella, has yielded mixed results.;This dissertation investigates the prosody-syntax interface in the processing of a double PP construction in Hebrew. Selection restrictions force the first prepositional phrase (PP1) to attach low, but attachment of the second one (PP2) is ambiguous: it can attach maximally high to VP (as an argument of described) or maximally low to the NP inside PP1 (modifying marriage). Dana VP[ te'ara 'et NP[ ha-ksayim PP1[ be-nisu'e-ha PP2[ la-sadran Dana described ACC the-difficulties in-marriage-her to the-broadcaster A length contrast in PP2 was also examined. PP2 was either short (as here) or long (with addition of a modifier to the short version).;This double PP construction exhibits a sharper structural contrast between the two potential attachment sites than the long-studied single-PP construction: there is a greater discontinuity in the syntactic tree for the high attachment analysis, which could encourage a stronger prosodic break before the ambiguous PP, yielding more reliable results than for the single-PP construction. An advantage of conducting the experiment in Hebrew is that the acoustic markers of prosodic phrase boundaries, which include a final high boundary tone, are clearer than in English.;Two experiments were conducted. The first was a combined production-comprehension study examining the relationship between preferred interpretation and preferred prosodic phrasing in reading aloud. The results showed a reliable association between high attachment of PP2 and the presence of a prosodic break immediately preceding it, though as predicted there were significantly more instances of this pattern (prosodic break + high attachment) for long than for short PP2. The second experiment tested comprehension of the same items in silent reading. PP2 length effects on attachment were very similar in silent reading and reading aloud, providing new insight into the Implicit Prosody Hypothesis (Fodor 2002).
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Linguistics
