Subcategorization Possibilities Trigger Syntactic Expectations: Evidence from the Processing of Heav

1
Subcategorization Possibilities Trigger Syntactic
Expectations Evidence from the Processing of
Heavy NP Shift
Adrian Staub, Charles Clifton, Jr., and Lyn
FrazierUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst

• Introduction
• In English, a direct object noun phrase tends to
  appear immediately after the verb. An exception
  is Heavy NP Shift (HNPS Ross, 1967), in which a
  long (or heavy) noun phrase is moved to the end
  of the sentence, over intervening material.
• Wasow (1997) suggested that the difficulty of
  processing HNPS may be determined, in part, by
  the verbs subcategorization possibilities.
• When the verb is obligatorily transitive (e.g.,
  guard, include), the comprehender is able to
  predict that a direct object will ultimately
  arrive, even when other material intervenes.
• When the verb is optionally transitive (e.g.,
  cheat, lecture), the comprehender may assume an
  intransitive frame, and may have difficulty
  integrating a subsequent noun phrase.
• Experiment 1
• Purpose To test Wasows suggestion that the
  difficulty of processing HNPS is influenced by
  the verbs subcategorization possibilities.
• Stimuli 28 sentences, four versions of each
• T obligatorily transitive verb O optionally
  transitive verb
• B adverb before verb A adverb after verb
• (1) a. TB The crowd publicly destroyed the holy
  statue made of bronze.
• b. OB The crowd publicly worshiped the holy
  statue made of bronze.
• c. TA The crowd destroyed publicly the holy
  statue made of bronze.
• d. OA The crowd worshiped publicly the holy
  statue made of bronze.
• The transitivity biases of the optionally
  transitive verbs were collected from published
  completion norms (Connine et al., 1984) they
  averaged 47 transitive responses, ranging from
  3 to 94.
• Participants 24 members of the UMass community

• Experiment 2
• Purpose To replicate Experiment 1, using
  optionally transitive verbs with a high
  transitive bias and to test the effect of
  lengthening the region between the verb and the
  shifted noun phrase.
• Stimuli 24 sentences, two versions of each
• T obligatorily transitive verb O optionally
  transitive verb
• (2) a. T The gardener placed against the shed a
  full wagon-load of flowering plants.
• b. O The gardener pushed against the shed a
  full wagon-load of flowering plants.
• The transitivity biases of the optionally
  transitive verbs were again collected from the
  Connine et al. (1984) norms they averaged 83
  transitive responses, ranging from 64 to 96.
• Participants 26 members of the UMass community
• Apparatus Generation VI Dual Purkinje
  Eyetracker
• Results
• NP region (a full wagon-load)
• First Fixation Duration First Pass
  Duration