Processing coordinate structures in Chinese: evidence from eye movements.
This article reports the results of an eye-tracking experiment that investigated the processing of coordinate structures in Chinese sentence comprehension. The study tracked the eye movements of native Chinese readers as they read sentences consisting of two independent clauses connected by the word...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2012-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3338849?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1811271785321070592 |
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| author | Chen Qingrong Huang Yan |
| author_facet | Chen Qingrong Huang Yan |
| author_sort | Chen Qingrong |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article reports the results of an eye-tracking experiment that investigated the processing of coordinate structures in Chinese sentence comprehension. The study tracked the eye movements of native Chinese readers as they read sentences consisting of two independent clauses connected by the word huo zhe. The data strongly confirmed readers' preference for an initial noun phrase (NP)-coordination parsing in Chinese coordination structure. When huo zhe was absent from the beginning of a sentence, we identified a cost associated with abandoning the NP-coordination analysis, which was evident with regard to the second NP when the coordination was unambiguous. Otherwise, this cost was evident with regard to the verb, the syntactically disambiguating region, when the coordination was ambiguous. However, the presence of a sentence-initial huo zhe reduced reading times and regressions in the huo zhe NP and the verb regions. We believe that the word huo zhe at the beginning of a sentence helps the reader predict that the sentence contains a parallel structure. Before the corresponding phrases appear, the readers can use the word huo zhe and the language structure thereafter to predicatively construct the syntactic structure. Such predictive capability can eliminate the reader's preference for NP-coordination analysis. Implications for top-down parsing theory and models of initial syntactic analysis and reanalysis are discussed. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T22:27:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8b42e160500f45bebda5c9f9c3caac15 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T22:27:23Z |
| publishDate | 2012-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-8b42e160500f45bebda5c9f9c3caac152022-12-22T03:14:05ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032012-01-0174e3551710.1371/journal.pone.0035517Processing coordinate structures in Chinese: evidence from eye movements.Chen QingrongHuang YanThis article reports the results of an eye-tracking experiment that investigated the processing of coordinate structures in Chinese sentence comprehension. The study tracked the eye movements of native Chinese readers as they read sentences consisting of two independent clauses connected by the word huo zhe. The data strongly confirmed readers' preference for an initial noun phrase (NP)-coordination parsing in Chinese coordination structure. When huo zhe was absent from the beginning of a sentence, we identified a cost associated with abandoning the NP-coordination analysis, which was evident with regard to the second NP when the coordination was unambiguous. Otherwise, this cost was evident with regard to the verb, the syntactically disambiguating region, when the coordination was ambiguous. However, the presence of a sentence-initial huo zhe reduced reading times and regressions in the huo zhe NP and the verb regions. We believe that the word huo zhe at the beginning of a sentence helps the reader predict that the sentence contains a parallel structure. Before the corresponding phrases appear, the readers can use the word huo zhe and the language structure thereafter to predicatively construct the syntactic structure. Such predictive capability can eliminate the reader's preference for NP-coordination analysis. Implications for top-down parsing theory and models of initial syntactic analysis and reanalysis are discussed.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3338849?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Chen Qingrong Huang Yan Processing coordinate structures in Chinese: evidence from eye movements. PLoS ONE |
| title | Processing coordinate structures in Chinese: evidence from eye movements. |
| title_full | Processing coordinate structures in Chinese: evidence from eye movements. |
| title_fullStr | Processing coordinate structures in Chinese: evidence from eye movements. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Processing coordinate structures in Chinese: evidence from eye movements. |
| title_short | Processing coordinate structures in Chinese: evidence from eye movements. |
| title_sort | processing coordinate structures in chinese evidence from eye movements |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3338849?pdf=render |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT chenqingrong processingcoordinatestructuresinchineseevidencefromeyemovements AT huangyan processingcoordinatestructuresinchineseevidencefromeyemovements |