Online revision process in clause-boundary garden-path sentences

Abstract

AbstractA long-standing question in sentence processing research concerns the online parsing process in clause-boundary garden-path sentences, such as After Mary dressed John bathed. In this sentence, “John” must be parsed as the matrix subject DP but can be locally analysed as the object of the embedded verb. There is considerable evidence that the parser misanalyses these garden-path sentences. However, the controversy lies in whether the parser revises them during the online parsing process. The present study investigated this revision process through two self-paced reading experiments utilising grammatical constraints on reflexives and subject or object relative clauses embedded within the locally ambiguous DP. The results provided evidence of revision when a subject relative clause was embedded but not when an object relative clause was embedded. These findings suggest that the parser assigns grammatical structures that correspond to input strings during the revision of clause-boundary ambiguities but that object relative clauses affect the online revision process.