Multiple Constraints on Processing Ambiguous Sentences: Evidence From Adult L2 Learners

Abstract

Forty‐five adult second language learners of English participated in this study, which investigated syntactically ambiguous sentences in which a prepositional phrase is interpreted as either an NP (noun phrase) attachment or VP (verb phrase) attachment (e.g., The cop saw the spy with binoculars). One group of 23 students performed comprehension tasks, first by listening to the sentences produced with no distinction in intonation favoring the NP or the VP interpretation, then by listening to the sentences produced with an intonation that favored the NP interpretation. A second group of 22 students performed comprehension tasks, first by reading the sentences with no preceding context, then by reading them preceded by a referential context. The students also did 2 sentence‐completion tasks, one manipulating “action verbs,” the other “psych and perception verbs,” to evaluate the verb‐based lexical biasing effect. Statistical analyses of the results showed lexical, syntactic, prosodic, and contextual constraints on processing of ambiguous sentences.

Referential context effects in L2 ambiguity resolution: Evidence from self-paced reading

“…This replicates the context effect observed by Ying (1996) and is in line with what the Referential Theory would lead us to expect. Our learners did not differ statistically from the native speakers in the degree to which their answer choices were affected by the referential context, or with regard to their absolute proportions of NP versus VP modification choices across the two experimental conditions.…”

“…The results from the current study confirm and extend those reported by Ying (1996) by demonstrating that PP ambiguity resolution in L2 English is highly sensitive to referential context information not only in off-line but also in on-line tasks. They furthermore extend previous findings by Roberts et al (2008) and Hopp (2009) from learners at or near the top end of the proficiency scale by showing that even learners at intermediate proficiency levels, and learners who had not spent any time at all in an immersion setting, are highly sensitive to extra-sentential discourse-level information during on-line L2 processing.…”

“…Given the findings reported in earlier monolingual (e.g., Altmann and Steedman, 1988) and L2 studies (Ying, 1996), we would expect the proportion of participants' VP modification choices to decrease in an NP-supporting context. Note that in Chinese, PP attachment ambiguities of the type under investigation do not exist, as VP and NP modification each normally require a different constituent order.…”

“…Ying (1996) examined advanced non-native speakers' interpretation preferences for ambiguous PPs in a series of untimed reading and listening based tasks. In his first experiment Ying asked learners of English from various L1 backgrounds to read ambiguous sentences such as The man talked to the girl with a sense of humour and indicate their preferred interpretation on an answer sheet.…”

Das Verständnis grammatischer Strukturen beim Lesen in Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Ergebnisse einer empirischen Untersuchung

“…Die genannten Faktoren spielen auch beim fremdsprachlichen Lesen eine Rolle (Ying 1996, Fender 2001, Williams 2006, und zwar auf zweierlei Art: Zum einen entwickeln Lernende im Laufe des Fremdspracherwerbs auf der Basis des fremdsprachlichen Inputs immer mehr und immer automatisiertere Satzverstehensverfahren, die der Fremdsprache adäquat sind. Das entscheidende Kriterium dafür dürfte die Sprachkompetenz des Lesers/der Leserin in der Fremdsprache sein.…”