Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution in Sentence Processing: New Evidence from a Morphologically Rich Language

An experimental study dedicated to structurally ambiguous sentences processing was carried out. We analyzed the case of participial construction attachment to a complex noun phrase. In Experiment 1, we used self-paced reading technique which enables to measure reading times of each word in a sentence and error rates in the interpretation of the sentences. Error rates in locally ambiguous sentences reveal high attachment preference – for sentences with low attachment error rates are higher. However, high attached modifiers are processed slower than low attached ones. In experiment 2, we use eye-tracking technique. Early effects (first-pass time) show that high attachment requires more time to process than low or ambiguous attachment (as Late Closure principle predicts). However, late effects (dwell time and regressions into the target region and out of it) show that adjunct attachment to a more discourse prominent NP (i.e. head of the complex NP) is more preferable. Regressions to competing NPs also show that NP1 is reread more often. Online eye-movements data correspond to offline data answers to questions forcing to choose between two possible interpretations of the sentence which also show strong high attachment bias. Therefore we see two stages of sentence processing: the first one is driven by locality principles and the second one is discourse-driven.