Sentence processing and the mental representation of verbs

Shapiro, Lewis P.; Zurif, Edgar; Grimshaw, Jane

doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(87)80010-0

Cited by 183 publications

(244 citation statements)

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“…This observation fits in well with other evidence concerning the time course of combinatorial semantic processing (e.g., Swinney and Smith 1994). Although information concerning potential argument structure configurations seems to be available soon after hearing the verb in a sentence (e.g., Shapiro et al 1987Shapiro et al , 1989, the deployment of such information in thematic role assignment appears to follow a slower-developing, longer-lasting real-time course than do syntactic operations. For instance, in a cross-modal task, Boland (1996) reports this pattern: syntactic anomaly influences naming response time significantly earlier than does meaning-based anomaly.…”

supporting

confidence: 85%

Semantic Combinatorial Processes in Argument Structure: Evidence from Light-Verbs

Piñango

Mack

Jackendoff

2006

BLS

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1.Introduction Any theory of how language is internally organized and how it interacts with other mental capacities must address the fundamental question of how syntactic and lexico-semantic information interact at one central linguistic compositional level, the sentence level. With this general objective in mind, we examine "lightverbs", so called because the main thrust of the semantic relations of the predicate that they denote is found not in the predicate itself, but in the argument structure of the syntactic object that such a predicate licenses. For instance, in the sentence Sue made a dash across the road, the character of the event expressed by make a dash is determined not so much by the main predicate make as by the object DP a dash. This situation defines the verb make as a light-verb, and the combination of the verb and the argument structure of its object as a "light-verb construction". Their behavior therefore lies at the interface between syntactic and lexicosemantic representation (e.g., Jespersen 1954, Jackendoff 1974, Cattell 1984, Grimshaw and Mester 1988, Baker 1989, Jun 2003, Culicover and Jackendoff 2005.Here, we seek to chart the time-course of interpretation of light-verbs, and through doing so, compare two possible ways it might take place. The first is a lexical approach, according to which the light-verb interpretation is fully listed as an idiom in the lexicon (i.e., a case of logical polysemy). The second is a compositional approach, according to which light-verb constructions are built "in real time", as it were; that is, the resulting interpretation of the light-verb construction arises out of the local syntactic and semantic context of the predicate and its object. We hypothesize that if the construction of light-verb interpretation is lexicalized in nature, it should be observable during real-time comprehension as soon as it is licensed. However, if, as the compositional approach suggests, the light-verb construction's interpretation is built online from the argument structures of the light-verb and the nominal, it should be observable only some time after having been licensed, in the form of computational cost. 573

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supporting

confidence: 85%

Semantic Combinatorial Processes in Argument Structure: Evidence from Light-Verbs

Piñango

Mack

Jackendoff

2006

BLS

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“…This finding supports others in both the sentence processing and sentence production literature. In the sentence processing literature, Shapiro, Zurif and Grimshaw (1987), Shapiro and Levine (1990), and Shapiro, Gordon, Hack, and Killackey (1993) found that when a verb is activated in the lexicon, all possible argument structure arrangements associated with that verb are also activated. We predicted that if indeed this happens, then when a verb is retrieved from the lexicon, its associated argument structure arrangements are also retrieved, and this then should facilitate grammatical sentence production.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verb production in agrammatic aphasia: The influence of semantic class and argument structure properties on generalisation

Schneider

Thompson

2003

Aphasiology

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“…In li^t of these results, Shapiro, Zurif , and Grimshaw's (1987) report of a lexical cortplexity effect (which, they claim, influences retrieval of a verb's lexical entry!) was surprising.…”

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confidence: 91%

“…Transitives (622) = Obligatory three-place (606) < Datives (647) In another paper, Shapiro and Levine (1989) confirmed the argument structure complexity effect of Shapiro et al (1987) and also showed that the complexity effect was no longer detected at a point about four syllables past the offset of the verb.F rom these results, Shapiro et al (1987Shapiro et al ( , 1989 and Shapiro and Levine (1988) Swinney (1979) , Onifer and Swinney (1981) and Tanenhaus, Leiinan, and Seidenberg (1979) using cross-modal, lexical-decision priming and cross-modal naming priming paradigms.…”

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confidence: 96%

“…The first is that vMch Shapiro et al (1987Shapiro et al ( , 1989 Fixations vary in duration, and increased fixation durations on a word or between words result because, for some reason, the word or words in the perceptual span take more time and resources to process (Payner, 1978 Past research has failed to find any lexical conplexity nvetric other than word frequency reflected in increased fixation durations on the lexically conplex word, so there is some question as to v^ether argument frame conplexity should influence eye movements.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Argument structure frames: A lexical complexity metric?

Schmauder¹

1991

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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The number of semantic argument structure frames associated with a verb has been reported to influence ease of processing during language comprehension. The present experiments tested the generality of the argument structure complexity effect with three dependent measures: eyefixation times, naming latencies, and lexical decision latencies. Two eye-movement experiments and two experiments using cross-modal tasks failed to provide evidence supporting the argument structure complexity effect. The present experiments indicated that results reflecting verbs' argument structure complexity are not generalizabic.

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Sentence processing and the mental representation of verbs

Cited by 183 publications

References 13 publications

Semantic Combinatorial Processes in Argument Structure: Evidence from Light-Verbs

Semantic Combinatorial Processes in Argument Structure: Evidence from Light-Verbs

Verb production in agrammatic aphasia: The influence of semantic class and argument structure properties on generalisation

Argument structure frames: A lexical complexity metric?

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