Presentation 2011-02-04
Japanese learners experience less difficulty with English garden-path sentences than native speakers by using subcategorization information of a verb
Chie NAKAMURA, Manabu ARAI, Yasunari HARADA,
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Abstract(in English) This study investigates the difference in processing structurally ambiguous (so-called 'garden-path') sentences in English between Japanese learner of English and native English speakers. The sentences tested in the experiment either contained a verb that almost always takes a direct object (transitive verb) or one that does not (intransitive verb). We measured reading time for individual words using self-paced reading task. Past research showed that native English speakers initially analyze a noun phrase that directly follows a verb as its direct object and experience processing difficulty on encountering disambiguating information regardless of the type of the verb. Our results with Japanese learners of English revealed greater processing difficulty at the disambiguating main verb when the subordinate clause had a transitive verb than when it had an intransitive verb. Further more, this tendency increased with the participants who answered more accurately to the comprehension questions, suggesting that Japanese learners of English, especially those who parse the sentences correctly, rely heavily on the grammatical knowledge of individual verbs to guide their initial analysis.
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Keyword(in English) garden-path sentence / self-paced reading / sentence processing / subcategorization information / L2 learning
Paper # TL2010-48
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Committee TL
Conference Date 2011/1/28(1days)
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Registration To Thought and Language (TL)
Language ENG
Title (in Japanese) (See Japanese page)
Sub Title (in Japanese) (See Japanese page)
Title (in English) Japanese learners experience less difficulty with English garden-path sentences than native speakers by using subcategorization information of a verb
Sub Title (in English)
Keyword(1) garden-path sentence
Keyword(2) self-paced reading
Keyword(3) sentence processing
Keyword(4) subcategorization information
Keyword(5) L2 learning
1st Author's Name Chie NAKAMURA
1st Author's Affiliation JSPS: Keio University()
2nd Author's Name Manabu ARAI
2nd Author's Affiliation JSPS:University of Tokyo
3rd Author's Name Yasunari HARADA
3rd Author's Affiliation Faculty of Law, Waseda University
Date 2011-02-04
Paper # TL2010-48
Volume (vol) vol.110
Number (no) 407
Page pp.pp.-
#Pages 6
Date of Issue