Processing Adverb-Verb Temporal Agreement

391 Pages·2012·8.77 MB·English

Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science
University of Trento, Italy

The Syntactic Side of Time:
Processing Adverb-Verb Temporal Agreement

by
Nicoletta Biondo

Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology and Cognitive
Science in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy 2016

Advisor
Prof. Francesco Vespignani

External Referees
Prof. Brian W. Dillon – University of Massachusetts Amherst
Prof. Francesca Peressotti – University of Padova

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have met many people that have supported and inspired me during these
three years, and it is definitely time to thank all of them.
First and foremost, I want to thank my advisor, Francesco Vespignani. I started
my PhD career as a theoretical linguist with no idea about the cognitive side of
language research. Although my inexperience has often led us to inescapable
discussions about how and if a psycholinguistic experiment can support
specific claims coming from theoretical linguistics (and vice versa), Francesco
has patiently guided me and taught me what methodological rigor is. Thanks to
him I have learned to think big, to broaden my horizons and to address the
right questions, so thanks Francesco.
I want also to thank two valuable researchers that guided me through my
research activities when I was abroad, Simona Mancini and Brian Dillon.
Simona’s work has been extremely inspiring from the very beginning, since the
time of my master’s studies in Siena. My research project would have not been
the same without her seminal work on agreement processing. Moreover, I have
also found in her a good friend that supported me during some frustrating
moments of my PhD, so thanks Simona.
Similarly, Brian’s work on memory access during sentence comprehension has
opened a new interesting window in my research path. Moreover, his
encouragement and his countless advice have made my stay at UMass the
most creative and productive time of my PhD. Thanks to Brian I have really
learned to believe in my ideas.
I want also to thank Brian, as well as Francesca Peressotti, for having kindly
accepted to review my dissertation. They both gave me interesting comments
and useful suggestions.
I want also to thank the scholar that initially guided me through the complex
and fascinating world of linguistics, Luigi Rizzi. I had the great opportunity to
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work with him when I was a master student in Siena and, despite his copious
commitments, he has always found the time to give me useful feedback about
my experimental findings or to discuss about big (and controversial) theoretical
questions, so thanks Luigi.
Many thanks also go to my new friends in Rovereto, in particular to Francesco,
Marco, Alessandra, Teresa, Alessio, Andrea, Giuseppe, Luca, Stefano, Tania,
Isabel and to my dearest friends and roommates Noemi, Rossella and Chiara
that were there for me, both in the “darkest” and in the “brightest” times.
Last, but not least, I want to thank mamma Piera, Paolo and Lia. In particular,
I dedicate my dissertation to my father, who taught me to never give up. He
rejoiced in my happiness when I started this PhD program, but he left too early
to see my satisfaction in concluding this hard and challenging work.
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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ........................................................................................ III

1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 1
1.1. The challenging status of agreement in current models of parsing ........ 1
1.2. The current work: investigating adverb-verb temporal agreement ......... 3
1.3. Rationale and structure of the dissertation .......................................... 7

2. Temporal agreement in theoretical linguistics .......................................... 11
2.1. The semantics of Tense and deictic temporal adverbs........................... 12
2.2. The syntax of Tense and deictic temporal adverbs ................................ 18
2.2.1. Tense .............................................................................................. 18
2.2.2. Deictic temporal adverbs and their relation with tense .................... 20
2.3. Theoretical choices .............................................................................. 23
2.4. Terminological choice: agreement or concord? ...................................... 27

3. Past experimental literature and new research questions......................... 29

4. Study 1: A self-paced reading study on adverb-verb temporal
agreement ................................................................................ 37
4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 41
4.2. Experiment 1 ....................................................................................... 49
4.2.1. Materials and method .......................................................................... 58
4.2.1.1. Participants .................................................................................... 58
4.2.1.2. Design and materials ...................................................................... 58
4.2.1.3. Procedure ....................................................................................... 60
4.2.1.4. Data analysis .................................................................................. 62
4.2.2. Results ................................................................................................ 63
4.2.2.1. Temporal violations ........................................................................ 63
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4.2.2.2. Number violations .......................................................................... 65
4.2.2.3. N-words violations ......................................................................... 66
4.2.2.4. Across experiment interaction ........................................................ 67
4.2.3. Discussion ........................................................................................... 67
4.3. Experiment 2 ....................................................................................... 72
4.3.1. Materials and method .......................................................................... 73
4.3.1.1. Participants .................................................................................... 73
4.3.1.2. Design and materials ...................................................................... 74
4.3.1.3. Procedure ....................................................................................... 74
4.3.1.4. Analysis .......................................................................................... 74
4.3.2. Results ................................................................................................ 76
4.3.2.1. Temporal violations ......................................................................... 77
4.3.2.2. Number violations ........................................................................... 80
4.3.2.3. N-words violations .......................................................................... 80
4.3.2.4. Across experiment interaction ........................................................ 81
4.3.3. Discussion ........................................................................................... 81
4.4. Experiment 3 ....................................................................................... 85
4.4.1. Materials and method .......................................................................... 86
4.4.1.1. Participants .................................................................................... 86
4.4.1.2. Design and materials ...................................................................... 87
4.4.1.3. Procedure ....................................................................................... 90
4.4.1.4. Data analysis .................................................................................. 90
4.4.2. Results ................................................................................................ 91
4.4.2.1. Temporal violations ......................................................................... 91
4.4.2.2. Number violations ........................................................................... 92
4.4.2.3. N-words violations .......................................................................... 93
4.4.2.4. Across experiment interaction ........................................................ 94
4.4.3. Discussion ........................................................................................... 95
4.5. General discussion .............................................................................. 97
4.5.1. Late stages of processing ..................................................................... 97
4.5.2. Early stages of processing .................................................................... 99
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4.5.3. Distance between the pre-verbal adverb and the verb ........................... 102
4.5.4. Order of the two constituents ............................................................... 103
4.6. Acknowledgements .............................................................................. 105

5. Bridge between Study 1 and Study 2 ....................................................... 107

6. Study 2: Widening agreement processing: a matter of time, distance and
features .................................................................................. 109
6.1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 109
6.1.1. Person, number and tense from a linguistic perspective ....................... 110
6.1.2. Number, person and tense agreement in current models of parsing ..... 113
6.1.3. Feature-based theoretical accounts and some experimental evidence ... 115
6.1.4. Eye-movements and the detection of agreement violations ................... 119
6.2. The current study ................................................................................ 121
6.3. Materials and Method .......................................................................... 127
6.3.1. Participants ......................................................................................... 127
6.3.2. Design and materials ........................................................................... 128
6.3.3. Procedure ............................................................................................ 132
6.3.4. Data analysis ....................................................................................... 133
6.3.5. Results ................................................................................................ 136
6.3.5.1. Pre-target region ............................................................................. 136
6.3.5.1.1. Number and Person.................................................................... 136
6.3.5.1.2. Tense ......................................................................................... 137
6.3.5.2. Target region ................................................................................... 137
6.3.5.2.1. Number and Person.................................................................... 137
6.3.5.2.2. Tense ......................................................................................... 139
6.3.5.3. Post-target region ............................................................................ 140
6.3.5.3.1. Number and Person.................................................................... 140
6.3.5.3.2. Tense ......................................................................................... 143
6.3.5.4. Across experiment interaction ......................................................... 150
6.4. Discussion ........................................................................................... 152
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6.4.1. Optionality and discourse-related properties on adjacent
constituents ........................................................................................ 154
6.4.2. Optionality and discourse-related properties on distal
constituents ........................................................................................ 156
6.5. Acknowledgements .............................................................................. 163

7. Bridge between Study 1-2 and Study 3 .................................................... 165

8. Study 3: Memory retrieval mechanisms in the resolution of the
adverb-verb relation, at long distance ......................................... 167
8.1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 167
8.2. The current study: Experiment 1 ......................................................... 174
8.2.1. Materials and method .......................................................................... 179
8.2.1.1. Participants .................................................................................... 179
8.2.1.2. Design and materials ...................................................................... 179
8.2.1.3. Procedure ....................................................................................... 182
8.2.2. Data analysis ....................................................................................... 183
8.2.3. Results ................................................................................................ 184
8.2.4. Discussion ........................................................................................... 187
8.3. Follow-up experiment: Experiment 2 .................................................... 189
8.3.1. Design and materials ........................................................................... 191
8.3.1.1. Adverb-verb manipulation ............................................................... 191
8.3.1.2. Context manipulation ..................................................................... 192
8.3.2. Procedure ............................................................................................ 194
8.3.3. Data analysis ....................................................................................... 195
8.3.3.1. Adverb-verb manipulation ............................................................... 195
8.3.3.2. Context manipulation ..................................................................... 195
8.3.4. Results ................................................................................................ 196
8.3.4.1. Adverb-verb manipulation ............................................................... 196
8.3.4.2. Context manipulation ..................................................................... 199
8.3.5. Discussion ........................................................................................... 201
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8.4. Post-hoc analysis on unified data......................................................... 203
8.5. General discussion .............................................................................. 205
8.6. Acknowledgements .............................................................................. 208

9. Summary of all results (Study 1, 2, 3) ..................................................... 209

10. General discussion .................................................................................. 213
10.1. Temporal agreement in late stages of processing .................................. 214
10.2. Temporal agreement in early stages of processing ................................ 216
10.3. Nature of the specificity of temporal agreement .................................... 218
10.4. Temporal agreement and task sensitivity ............................................. 223
10.5. The sensitivity to an illicit distractor in different types of agreement ..... 225
10.6. Agreement is not a unique mechanism as many models of parsing
assume ................................................................................................ 227

General References ....................................................................................... 231
Appendix: Experimental material .................................................................. 247

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