Integration of syntactic and semantic information in predictive processing: cross-linguistic evidence from German and English.
Two visual-world eyetracking experiments were conducted to investigate whether, how, and when syntactic and semantic constraints are integrated and used to predict properties of subsequent input. Experiment 1 contrasted auditory German constructions such as, "The hare-nominative eats ... (the cabbage-acc)" versus "The hare-accusative eats ... (the fox-nom)," presented with a picture containing a hare, fox, cabbage, and distractor. We found that the probabilities of the eye movements to the cabbage and fox before the onset of NP2 were modulated by the case-marking of NP1, indicating that the case-marking (syntactic) information and verbs' semantic constraints are integrated rapidly enough to predict the most plausible NP2 in the scene. Using English versions of the some stimuli in active/passive voice (Experiment 2), we replicated the same effect, but at a slightly earlier position in the sentence. We discuss the discrepancies in the two Germanic languages in terms of the ease of integrating information across, or within, constituents.
Kamide
Yuki
Y
Department of Psychology, University of York, UK. yuki.kamide@man.ac.uk
Scheepers
Christoph
C
Altmann
Gerry T M
GT
D005133:Eye Movements; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D012660:Semantics; D014796:Visual Perception