Revisiting the scrambling complexity hypothesis in sentence processing: a self-paced reading study on anomaly detection and scrambling in Hindi

Abstract

The scrambling complexity hypothesis based on working memory or locality accounts as well as syntactic accounts have proposed that processing a scrambled structure is difficult. However, the locus of this difficulty in sentence processing remains debatable. Several studies on multiple languages have explored the effect of scrambling on sentence processing and not all languages have shown an advantage for the canonical word order. Using a self-paced reading paradigm, we studied the effect of scrambling on semantic anomaly detection in Hindi sentence comprehension employing three word order types. Reading times on critical verbs, judgment latency, and error rates showed significant effect of word order type. The results further revealed significant interactions between word order and anomaly type. The patterns of results suggest that the canonical word order does not necessarily have a processing advantage in terms of speed and accuracy over non-canonical orders and do not provide support to sentence processing accounts that assume an advantage for canonical structures. The results indicate that processing speed depends on the distance between the subject and the verb, thus supporting a locality dependent working memory based model of sentence processing. The results provide evidence for the role of specific cognitive processes in Hindi sentence processing with further implications for language and literacy acquisition in Hindi.

Developmental changes in allocation of visual attention during sentence generation: an eye tracking study

“…S-V-O). This also has a resemblance to other data from Hindi, where the non canonical SVO pattern has been found to be less depending in processing Mishra, Pandey & Srinivasan, 2011). However, at this point of time, without further controlled studies, this approach remains as a hypothesis.…”

Language background affects online word order processing in a second language but not offline

“…This preference is reflected in increased reading times behaviourally, and neurocognitively in an increased centro-parietal positivity (the P600) for ungrammatical SOV but not for ungrammatical SVO (Weyerts et al, 2002). Studies have also shown processing difficulties that language users experience when dealing with correct but less frequently occurring word orders (Fiebach, Schlesewsky & Friederici, 2002; Friederici, Hahne & Saddy, 2002; Friederici, Steinhauer, Mecklinger & Meyer, 1998; Rösler, Pechmann, Streb, Röder & Hennighausen, 1998; Vos, Gunter, Schriefers & Friederici, 2001; but see Mishra, Pandey & Srinivasan, 2011; Yamashita, 1997). Examples of such word orders include scrambling, such as German dislocations where an object can appear in a pre-subject position sentence-medially with overt case-marking, as in the sentence Maria glaubt, dass den Onkel [O] der Vater [S] schlägt .…”

Locality and expectation effects in Hindi preverbal constituent ordering

“…Comrie (1981) defined canonical word order as the statistically most frequent order, which is also the neutral order in a given discourse context. The comprehension of non-canonical word orders has been investigated in the Hindi sentence comprehension literature (Vasishth 2004, Mishra et al 2011, Choudhary 2011. In addition, works on Hindi and other verb-final languages have revealed role of information status considerations in preverbal constituent ordering (Butt andKing 1996, Ferreira andYoshita 2003).…”