Nonlocal effects of prosodic boundaries.

Full Abstract

Placing a prosodic boundary before a phrase may influence its syntactic analysis. However, the boundary's effect depends on the presence, size, and position of other, earlier, prosodic boundaries. In three experiments, we extend previous results about the effect of the position of the early boundary. In sentences in which a final phrase may modify either a local verb or an earlier verb, a boundary immediately after the first verb leads to more first-verb attachments than when the earlier boundary appears in another position between the two verbs (Experiments 1 and 2). This effect cannot be attributed to weaker effects of more distant boundaries (Experiment 2), but is likely due to the first verb being more prominent when a boundary immediately follows it, since similar effects are observed when the verb is accented (Experiment 3). The results support the informative boundary hypothesis and show that the impact of earlier, nonlocal boundaries is not fully uniform.

Author information

Author/s: Carlson, Katy (K); Clifton, Charles (C); Frazier, Lyn (L);

Affiliation: Morehead State University, Morehead, Kentucky, USA. k.carlson(-atsign-)moreheadstate.edu

Grants: HD-18708 (Agency:NICHD NIH HHS) ; R01 HD018708-26A1 (Agency:NICHD NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Memory & cognition (Mem Cognit), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Oct; vol 37 (issue 7) : pp 1014-25

Dates: Created 2009/09/11; Completed 2009/11/02;

PMID: 19744940, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/2/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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