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Abstract:
The present study uses the cross-modal lexical priming
technique (CMLP) in order to investigate the time course of
antecedent reactivation during sentence processing in Bulgarian
as compared cross-linguistically with the available data for the
English. This paper is based on the methodology developed and
applied to English language material by David Swinney and his
co-workers (cf. Love and Swinney, 1996). It is also intended to
reveal the nature of the representation that is examined when a
reference-seeking element is linked to its antecedent during the
processing of complex sentences with object-relative clause
constructions. In our study, following the procedure of Love and
Swinney (1996), subjects heard sentences with a lexical ambiguity
placed in a strongly biasing context. Pre-tests were carried out
to ensure equi-biased meanings of the ambiguity, word frequency
and reaction time comparability for ambiguities and controls. In
the sentences, the ambiguous word was the 'fronted' object of the
verb in an object-relative construction. A CMLP naming task was
applied in order to determine whether one or more meanings of the
ambiguity are activated at three temporally distinct points: (a)
immediately after the lexical ambiguity (Position 1); (b) a later
point that is 700 milliseconds prior to the offset of the verb
(Position 2); and (c) immediately after this verb, at the
expected gap in this filler-gap construction (Position 3). Our
data provide partial confirmation of results obtained in similar
studies of English. At Position 1, all meanings of the ambiguity
are activated compared with controls. At Position 2, both
meanings are still activated. At Position 3, none of the meanings
are activated any more than the controls. This is in contrast
with the results of Love and Swinney where only the
context-relevant meaning of the ambiguity is reactivated. This
cross-linguistic disparity can be interpreted in terms of a
number of specific characteristics of the Bulgarian language and
its on-line processing. Unlike English, the subordinate clause in
Bulgarian has a relatively free word order. Ambiguity is aided by
the presence of gender/number agreement between the relative
pronoun and the object noun which allows for PRO-drop. All these
provide earlier (than English) cues for ambiguity resolution and
obviate the appearance of a gap.
Love, T. and Swinney, D. (1996) "Coreference processing and
levels of analysis in object-relative constructions:
Demonstration of antecedent reactivation with the Cross-Modal
Priming paradigm."
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
25:5-24.
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