| dc.description.abstract | The attraction of the well-structured arguments of the mental syntactic processing
device (parser) in Chomsky’s theory has led to an overemphasis on syntactic processing
to the exclusion of semantic and other processing in the initial sentence processing stage
(Frazier & Clifton, 1996; Gibson & Hickok, 1993; Pickering & van Gompel, 2006). The
current thesis joins some others (Green & Mitchell, 2006; MacDonald et al., 1994;
Townsend & Bever, 2001, etc.), investigating the timecourse of the information
processing of sentences.
The first interest centres on ambiguous sentence resolution. Crosslinguistic studies have
shown different resolutions in processing the relative clause (RC) attachment as in “the
servant of the actress who was on the balcony” (Cuetos & Mitchell, 1988). Three
studies confirmed that there is an NP-low preference in Chinese; however, this effect
was delayed in comparison to its English counterparts. The NP-low preference can be
explained by syntax-first, syntax parallel, and syntax later theories. However, the delay
effect questions the traditional syntax-first theories. This leads to the second
investigation of direct comparison of the timecourse of syntactic and semantic
processing using anomalous materials in English and Chinese. Two experiments have
confirmed that the syntactic anomaly is recognised later than semantic anomaly in both
languages.
The empirical investigation in the current thesis used various methodologies, including
self-paced reading, a questionnaire, and eye-tracking studies, where the design of
materials strictly followed linguistic principles. All the results support the late
assignment of syntax theory (LAST) (Townsend & Bever, 2001). In fact, LAST can
explain most of the evidence for syntax-first and syntax-parallel theories, and it is in
line with the latest development of the linguistic UG theories (the Minimalist
Programme). | en_GB |
