Should given information come before new? Yes and no.
It has been noted for some time that given information tends to be placed before new information (e.g., Clark & Clark, 1977). To determine whether this holds generally, double-object and NP-PP sentences like the following were tested in two speeded acceptability judgment experiments. (1A) The senator mailed the woman a report. (1B) The senator mailed a woman the report. (1C) The senator mailed the report to a woman. (1D) The senator mailed a report to the woman. Given-before-new (or definite before indefinite) ordering facilitated processing for double-object structures, with (1A) processed faster and accepted more often than (1B), but did not facilitate processing of (1C) relative to (1D) in NP-PP structures. A third self-paced reading experiment showed that the advantage of the definite-before-indefinite new ordering holds for constructions with a shifted NP (The senator mailed to the woman a report) but also showed that facilitation from having a definite NP immediately after the verb was limited to cases where the two arguments of a verb contrast in definiteness. The results suggest that the presumed given-before-new preference is not general, but is instead limited to certain constructions and is based on the language comprehension system being sensitive to the requirements of language production.
Clifton
Charles
C
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. cec@psych.umass.edu
Frazier
Lyn
L
D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D007802:Language; D013997:Time Factors