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Parsing Complex Noun Phrases: Effects of Hierarchical Structure and Sentence Position on Memory Load

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2017

Sergio Mota  and
José Manuel Igoa
Sergio Mota
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
José Manuel Igoa*
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to José Manuel Igoa. Departamento de Psicología Básica. Facultad de Psicología. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Campus de Cantoblanco. 28049. Madrid (Spain). Phone: +34–914973263. Fax: +34–914975215. E-mail: josemanuel.igoa@uam.es
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Abstract

In this paper, we report two experiments in Spanish designed to find out what kind of processes underlie the online parsing of complex noun phrases (NPs). To that end, we used a ‘click detection’ paradigm coupled with an oral comprehension task with sentences made up of complex NPs comprising embedded prepositional phrases PPs or coordinate NPs. The critical NPs consisted of words or pseudowords, and were inserted either at subject position (Experiment 1) or at object position (Experiment 2) in the sentence. Results show an opposite pattern of RTs to clicks when the complex NP is located at subject (vs. object) position, with the former case showing heavier processing demands as the parser delves deeper into the complex NP, regardless of the internal constituency of the target NP and its lexical content, and the latter yielding the opposite pattern. These results suggest that structural complexity by itself does not determine an increase in processing costs during sentence parsing, which is only apparent in cases involving deferred operations like subject-verb agreement.

Keywords

hierarchical structurememory loadparsingsentence position effects
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 20 , 2017 , E37
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2017 

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Footnotes

We wish to thank Ted Gibson and an anonymous reviewer for extremely helpful comments and suggestions to earlier versions of the manuscript.

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