Repositori URV

Identifier: TDX:735

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX735

Authors:
Demestre Viladevall, Josep

Abstract:
The main aim of this thesis was to examine the influence verb-specific information has on sentence processing. We studied two particular sources of information that are stored at a verb's lexical entry: (i) the control properties of a verb that determine the assignment of an antecedent to the null subject of an infinitival complement, and (ii) the information that specifies that a verb subcategorizes for a tensed complement in a particular verbal mood.We have tested the predictions of the garden-path model (Frazier, 1987) and the predictions of constraint-based lexicalist models (MacDonald, et al., 1994a, b; Trueswell & Tanenhaus, 1994). The central question we wanted to address is whether the sentence processor initially ignores verb-specific information as the garden-path model assumes or whether such lexical information has a rapid influence on the early stages of parsing as assumed by constraint-based lexicalist parsing models.We run nine experiments a cross modal naming experiment, two ERPs experiments and six self-paced reading experiments to examine the role of control and mood information on the early stages of parsing. There are two novel aspects in this thesis that we would like to highlight. On the one hand, the relation between verb control information and on-line sentence comprehension had received little attention in Spanish. Moreover, in the six experiments designed to examine the influence of this type of information on sentence processing we manipulated the agreement patterns between the null subject of the infinitive and an adjective predicated of it. To date, nobody had used such a manipulation to study the assignment of an antecedent to the null subject of an infinitival complement. On the other hand, the influence of mood information on sentenc