Toward a prenominal syntax? A brief look at statistical alternations

Schenkoske, Laurel A.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/72652 Copy

Description

Title

Toward a prenominal syntax? A brief look at statistical alternations

Author(s)

Schenkoske, Laurel A.

Issue Date

2014-12

Keyword(s)

• Linguistics
• Syntax
• Psycholinguistics
• English

Date of Ingest

2014-12-29T23:03:05Z

Abstract

This pilot study aims to show that people indeed use subconscious statistical processing to aid in the acquisition of constructions, and frequent form-function mappings emerge as structures that work well together. The current study is a modified replication of Wells et.al. (2009), in which frequency distributions of NL-English speakers' relative clauses were manipulated, causing them to more quickly process a less frequent, irregular form. The construction under consideration here is the prenominal clause, rare in English, but attested in many primary languages. The hypothesis was that, given minimal exposure to this construction, subjects would statistically re-categorize their linguistic systems. The infrequent/irregular prenominal phrase was compared with the frequent/regular postnominal RC. Pre- and Post-Tests recorded participants’ self-paced reading times. During two brief Experience Blocks, spaced two days apart, subjects received limited exposure to both target structures. Reading times in the prenominal structure decreased more than that of the RC, for each subject, indicating faster processing. A preliminary analysis of results shows that all subjects reanalyzed the statistical distributions of the prenominal clause.

Publisher

Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

ISSN

0049-2388

Type of Resource

text

Genre of Resource

Article

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/72652

Copyright and License Information

Copyright © 2014 Laurel A. Schenkoske

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