The Prosodic Resolution of Syntactic/Semantic Ambiguity: An Exemplar-based Account

Abstract

Ahn, Hyunah. (2017). The Prosodic Resolution of Syntactic/Semantic Ambiguity: An Exemplar-based Account. Language Research, 53.3, 501-524.This study tests the hypothesis that the ambiguity of a null argument construction in Korean like Lwummeituka mwusewun ka poayo (The roommate must be scared/scary) can be prosodically resolved. The null argument construction is tested with two-place psychological predicates such as mwusewun (scared/scary) and kwichanun (bothered/bothersome). A naturalness rating experiment shows the following: (1) when the NP Lwummeituka is the experiencer of the psychological predicate scare and the sentence means 'The roommate must be scared,' both an Accentual Phrase (AP) boundary and an Intonational Phrase (IP) boundary are equally accepted between the NP and the VP; (2) when the NP is the stimulus (The roommate must be scary), only an AP boundary is perceived natural. Reaction time and comprehension question accuracy data further display the role played by prosody in ambiguity resolution. The results are discussed within the exemplar framework.

L2 Korean Speakers’ Thematic Role Resolution in a Psych-predicate Construction

“…The results of the data analyses were different from what was predicted and also from native Korean speakers' behavior reported in Ahn (2017). Naturalness ratings and RTs to naturalness ratings did not yield any significant differences between conditions, most likely due to the small data size.…”

“…The challenge does not end there. Previous studies (Ahn, 2017;2018) show that Koreans also use prosody to distinguish the two different meanings of the ambiguous construction.…”

“…This leads to the hypothesis that for an ambiguous sentence as in (8), the experiencer reading can have either a smaller break (AP) or a larger break (IP) while the stimulus reading will more likely have a smaller break (AP). Indeed, this hypothesis was tested in Ahn (2017), and the study showed that the ambiguous construction in (8) can be prosodically distinguishable. Native Korean speakers found the stimulus reading of the ambiguous construction natural only when it is accompanied by a relatively smaller prosodic break (AP) while they found the experiencer reading natural either with AP or IP breaks.…”

“…Then, the disambiguation of the sentence might depend on the context. Ahn (2017). Each ambiguous construction was contextualized as in 14and 15, which prevented any native speaker of Korean from experiencing difficulty in identifying the thematic role of the critical NP roommate.…”