Is it all relative? Effects of prosodic boundaries on the comprehension and production of attachment ambiguities

By Jesse Snedeker, Elizabeth Casserly. 2010

249 citations recorded by the source corpus.

While there is ample evidence that prosody and syntax mutually constrain each other, there is considerable uncertainty about the nature of this interface. Here, we explore this issue with prepositional phrase attachment ambiguities (You can feelA the catB with the feather). Prior research has been motivated by two hypotheses: (1) the absolute boundary hypothesis (ABH) posits that attachment preferences depend on the size of the prosodic boundary before the ambiguous phrase (boundary B) and (2) the relative boundary hypothesis (RBH) links attachment to the relative size of boundary B and any boundary between the high and low attachment site (boundary A). However, few experiments test the unique predictions of either theory. Study 1 examines how syntax influences prosodic production. The results provide modest support for RBH and stronger support for ABH. In Study 2, we systematically vary the size of both boundaries in an offline comprehension task. We find that absolute boundary strength influences interpretation when relative boundary strength is held constant, and relative boundary strength influences interpretation when absolute boundary strength is held constant. Thus, our theory of the prosody–syntax interface must account for effects of both kinds.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aeafdfe070c29098b6194b5bb79afe72f36a7af0

Citations in the corpus

• International Trade and Unemployment: Theory and Cross-National Evidence (2009, unknown): “pihik φi i − rki − wi = (ρ+ λi)δi miθ γ−1 i (12)”
• Trade liberalization and unemployment: Theory and evidence from India (2012, unknown): “While an unemployment reducing effect of trade liberalization, through an aggregate productivity effect based on firm selection, is obtained in the theoretical work of Felbermayr, Prat and Schmerer (2008), the opposite result is possible in Helpman and Itskhoki (2007). To the extent that trade, in t”
• Working Paper 201 - Does Intra-African Trade Reduce Youth Unemployment in Africa ? (2014, unknown): “…rates in the trading countries (Egger and Kreickemeier, 2009, 2011; Newfarmer and Sztajerowska, 2012; Felbermayr, Prat, and Schmerer, 2011a, b; Helpman and Itskhoki, 2010; Helpman, Itskhoki, and Redding, 2010, 2011). von Uexkull 17 (2012) finds that regionally exporting firms in ECOWAS…”
• Domestic Institutions as a Source of Comparative Advantage (2013, unknown): “There are a number of drawbacks to the above analysis that are elegantly addressed by Helpman and Itskhoki (2010).”
• Experimental and theoretical advances in prosody: A review (2010, unknown): “Findings by Snedeker and Trueswell (2003) are consistent with Allbritton et al.”