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Abstract:
Several studies (Gibson et al., 1996; Walter & Hemforth,
1998; Wijnen, 1998) have shown that attaching a relative clause to
the second NP in a threefold ambiguous context
(NP1-prep-NP2-prep-NP3-RC) is strongly dispreferred. Gibson et al.
(1996) argue that attachment in such contexts is determined by two
competing structural parsing principles, Predicate Proximity and
Recency Preference. The dispreference of attachment to the middle
NP in a three-site context is explained by the fact that it
violates both principles. We hypothesize, however, that this
dispreference is due to the fact that the second noun in a
threefold compound NP is not in a focus position. Modification or
specification of an NP by means of an RC can be viewed as a means
to supply new information, hence as focussing. This is supported by
the finding that RC's in a two-site ambiguous context are
preferably attached to the prosodically most prominent noun
(Schafer et al., 1996).
Our hypothesis predicts that it is virtually impossible to
assign prosodic prominence to the middle NP, and intuition suggests
this to be true. To further test our hypothesis, we asked 6 native
speakers of Dutch to read aloud 54 sentences in which a relative
clause was included in a threefold compound NP, and to disambiguate
RC-attachment in their spoken realisation as prescribed by
underlining in the text. The subjects consistently produced a
limited number of prosodic patterns for the NP1 and NP3
attachments, but were much less consistent on the NP2-attachments.
Also, the number of successful disambiguations, as judged by an
experienced listener, was significantly lower for the NP2
attachments than for NP1 and NP3 attachments.
Next, we ran a spoken questionnaire study (25 Ss), in which 15
tape-recorded Subject-V-NP1-prep-NP2-prep-NP3-RC sentences were
presented with three prosodic realisations corresponding to the
most frequently used patterns for the three disambiguation options
in the production study. Overall, the listeners interpreted 44% of
the cases as NP3-attachments, 38% as NP1-attachments and 19% as
NP2-attachments. Prosodic phrasing significantly modulated
perceived RC-attachment, but the direction of the effects did not
mirror the attachment-prosody associations found in production.
Notably, none of the prosodic patterns, not even the one that was
most often used to signal NP2-attachment (prosodic breaks after NP2
and NP3) produced a marked shift of the perceived attachment toward
NP2.
These results support our contention that the middle position in
a compound NP cannot be focussed, and therefore resists the
attachment of an adjunct phrase.
References
Gibson, E., Pearlmutter, N., Canseco-Gonzalez, E., & Hickok,
G. (1996). Recency preference in the human sentence processing
mechanism.
Cognition,
59, 23-59.
A. Schafer, Carter, J., Clifton Jr., C., & Frazier, L. (1996).
Focus in relative clause construal.
Language and Cognitive Processes,
11, 135-163.
Walter, M., & Hemforth, B. (1998). The attachment of extraposed
and adjacent relative clauses to three-site NPs in German. Poster
presented at the 11th Annual CUNY Conference, New Brunswick, NJ,
March 19-21.
Wijnen, F. (1998). Dutch relative clause attachment in two- and
three-site contexts. Poster presented at the 11th Annual CUNY
Conference, New Brunswick, NJ, March 19-21.
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