Thematic processing of adjuncts: Evidence from an eye-tracking experiment

Simon P. Liversedge, Martin Pickering, Emma L Clayes, Holly Branigan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We investigated thematic processing in sentences containing a prepositional phrase that was ambiguous between a locative and a temporal interpretation. We manipulated context (temporal or locative), target sentence (temporal or locative), and whether or not the main verb of the target and the context was repeated. Results showed that context dictated the participants' thematic expectations. Thematically, congruent target and context pairs were read faster than incongruent pairs. This effect was not modulated by verb repetition. We argue that wh -words cause readers to lodge semantically vacuous thematic roles in their discourse representation that bias a reader's interpretation of subsequent thematically ambiguous adjuncts in their discourse representation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)667-675
JournalPsychonomic Bulletin & Review
Volume10
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sep 2003

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Thematic processing of adjuncts: Evidence from an eye-tracking experiment'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this