Abstract
This paper investigates the strength of the local attachment preference in syntactic ambiguity resolution, based on a study of a novel ambiguity for which the predictions of local attachment contrast with the predictions of a wide range of other ambiguity resolution principles. In sentences of the form “Because Rose praised the recipe I made ...” we show that the ambiguous clause “I made” is preferentially attached as a relative clause under some circumstances, as predicted by local attachment, and preferentially attached as a matrix clause under other circumstances. The implications for accounts of locality in parsing are discussed.
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Phillips, C., Gibson, E. On the Strength of the Local Attachment Preference. J Psycholinguist Res 26, 323–346 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025028725042
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025028725042