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The use of pronominal case in English sentence interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2010

YUKI YOSHIMURA  and
BRIAN MacWHINNEY
YUKI YOSHIMURA*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
BRIAN MacWHINNEY
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Yuki Yoshimura, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 161 Presidents Drive, Amherst, MA 01003. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study examined adult English native speakers' processing of sentences in which pronominal case marking conflicts with word order. Previous research has shown that English speakers rely heavily on word order for assigning case roles during sentence interpretation. However, in terms of cue reliability measures, we should expect English pronominal case to be nearly as strong a cue as word order. The current study examined this issue by asking subjects to interpret grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in which case competes with word order. The results indicated that word order remains the strongest cue in English, even when the case-marking cue is available. However, for noncanonical word orders, the case-marking cue had a strong effect on sentence interpretation.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 619 - 633
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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