Processing verb-phrase ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence against the syntactic account

Cai, Zhenguang G.; Pickering, Martin J.; Sturt, Patrick

doi:10.1080/01690965.2012.665932

Cited by 19 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Our results also contrast with recent findings that comprehenders do not appear to instantiate syntactic structure associated with VP ellipsis: Cai et al (2013) found that reading a Mandarin DO or PO sentence involving an elided VP did not prime production of DO or PO sentences respectively. This suggests that they do not syntactically represent the elided VP -in other words, that they do not represent its internal structure (i.e., V PP PP or V PP NP).…”

Section: Syntactic Representation Of Missing Elementscontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…(Note that even under an alternative analysis in which gei in DO sentences is treated as a co-verb, (1a) and 1bstill involve two distinct syntactic structures.) Observations that Mandarin DO sentences structurally prime DO sentences, and PO sentences structurally prime PO sentences, further confirm that the two constructions have distinct syntactic structures (Cai et al, 2011(Cai et al, , 2013Cai, Pickering, & Branigan, 2012).…”

Section: Structural Priming and The Construction Of Syntactic Represementioning

confidence: 60%

“…and 2 Chushi huang-gei youyong xuanshou yige shuihu, "the chef returned the swimmer a jug"). These DO fillers were included in order to boost the production of DO responses (see also Cai et al, 2012Cai et al, , 2013 associated with a match picture and a description picture (see Figure 3).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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It is there whether you hear it or not: Syntactic representation of missing arguments

et al. 2015

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Many languages allow arguments to be omitted when they are recoverable from the context, but how do people comprehend sentences with a missing argument? We contrast a syntactically-represented account whereby people postulate a syntactic representation for the missing argument, with a syntactically-non-represented account whereby people do not postulate any syntactic representation for it. We report two structural priming experiments in Mandarin Chinese that showed that comprehension of a dative sentence with a missing direct-object argument primed the production of a full-form dative sentence (relative to an intransitive) and that it behaved similarly to a corresponding full-form dative sentence. The results suggest that people construct the same constituent structure for missing-argument sentences and full-form sentences, in accord with the syntactically-represented account. We discuss the implications for syntactic representations in language processing.

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Section: Syntactic Representation Of Missing Elementscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Structural Priming and The Construction Of Syntactic Represementioning

confidence: 60%

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It is there whether you hear it or not: Syntactic representation of missing arguments

et al. 2015

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“…Additional evidence that mental representations of syntactic structure can persist after they have been processed come from structural priming studies (see e.g. Bock and Griffin 2000;Branigan et al 2000;Gries 2005;Kaschak 2007) (though see Cai et al 2012 for an opposing argument).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The division of labor in explanations of verb phrase ellipsis

Kim

Runner

2017

Linguist and Philos

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In this paper, we will argue that, of the various grammatical and discourse constraints that affect acceptability in verb phrase ellipsis (VPE), only the structural parallelism constraint is unique to VPE. We outline (previously noted) systematic problems that arise for classical structural accounts of VPE resolution, and discuss efforts in recent research on VPE to reduce explanations of acceptability in VPE to general well-formedness constraints at the level of information structure (e. In two magnitude estimation experiments, we show that-in line with Kehler's predictions-degradation due to structural mismatch is modulated by coherence relation. On the other hand, we consistently find residual structural mismatch effects, suggesting that the interpretation of VPE is sensitive to structural features of the VPE antecedent. We propose that a structural constraint licenses VPE, but that sentences violating this constraint can nevertheless be interpreted. The variability in acceptability is accounted for not by additional constraints on VPE in the grammar, but by the numerous general biases that affect sentence and discourse well-formedness, such as information structural constraints (as proposed by Kertz 2013), discourse coherence relations (Kehler 2000), sensitivity to Question Under Discussion structure (e.g. Ginzburg and Sag in English , and thematic role bias at the lexical level (e.g. McRae et al. in J Mem Lang 38:283-312, 1998). We test the prediction that thematic role bias (Experiment 3) and QUD structure (Experiment 4) will influence both elliptical and non-elliptical sentences alike, while structural mismatch continues to degrade elliptical sentences alone. Our proposal differs from existing proposals in cutting the explanatory pie in a different way with respect to how variations in acceptability are accounted for. We suggest that degradation can result from at least two distinct and separable sources: violating construction-specific grammatical constraints, or from complexity differences in interpretation related to very general discourse level information.

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“…Structural priming has been observed for different constructions and languages (e.g., Cai, Pickering, Yan, & Branigan, 2011; Salamoura & Williams, 2006; Scheepers, 2003; Bernolet, Hartsuiker, & Pickering, 2007), and in natural speech as well as experiments (Gries, 2005; Jaeger & Snider, 2013; Szmrecsanyi, 2005; see Pickering & Ferreira, 2008, for a review). Most relevantly, structural priming has already been used to study well-formed sentences involving missing elements (Cai, Pickering, & Sturt, 2013), as well as the processing of anomalous sentences (Ivanova, Pickering, Branigan, McLean, & Costa, 2012; Slevc & Momma, 2015). …”

Section: Structural Priming From Anomalous Sentencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do you what I say? People reconstruct the syntax of anomalous utterances

Ivanova

Branigan

McLean

et al. 2016

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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We frequently experience and successfully process anomalous utterances. Here we examine whether people do this by ‘correcting’ syntactic anomalies to yield well-formed representations. In two structural priming experiments, participants’ syntactic choices in picture description were influenced as strongly by previously comprehended anomalous (missing-verb) prime sentences as by well-formed prime sentences. Our results suggest that comprehenders can reconstruct the constituent structure of anomalous utterances – even when such utterances lack a major structural component such as the verb. These results also imply that structural alignment in dialogue is unaffected if one interlocutor produces anomalous utterances.

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Processing verb-phrase ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence against the syntactic account

Cited by 19 publications

References 44 publications

It is there whether you hear it or not: Syntactic representation of missing arguments

It is there whether you hear it or not: Syntactic representation of missing arguments

The division of labor in explanations of verb phrase ellipsis

Do you what I say? People reconstruct the syntax of anomalous utterances

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