Do you what I say? People reconstruct the syntax of anomalous utterances. Issue 2 (7th February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ivanova, Iva; Branigan, Holly P.; McLean, Janet F.; Costa, Albert; Pickering, Martin J.
• Is Part Of: Language, cognition and neuroscience. Volume 32:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 175
• Page End: 189
• Publication Date: 2017-02-07
• Subjects: Language comprehension -- sentence processing -- structural priming -- missing verbs; Psycholinguistics -- Periodicals; Linguistics -- Periodicals; Neurosciences -- Periodicals; Psycholinguïstiek; Cognitieve processen; Linguistics; Neurosciences; Psycholinguistics; Periodicals; 401.9
• DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2016.1236976
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2327-3798

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We frequently experience and successfully process anomalous utterances. Here we examine whether people do this by "correcting" syntactic anomalies to yield well-formed representations. In two structural priming experiments, participants' syntactic choices in picture description were influenced as strongly by previously comprehended anomalous (missing-verb) prime sentences as by well-formed prime sentences. Our results suggest that comprehenders can reconstruct the constituent structure of anomalous utterances – even when such utterances lack a major structural component such as the verb. These results also imply that structural alignment in dialogue is unaffected if one interlocutor produces anomalous utterances.