Abstract
Subjects listened to recorded sentences which were followed by probe words. They performed a next-word naming task—uttering the word that followed the probe word in the original sentence as quickly as possible. Other things being equal, naming latencies are longer when the juncture between the probe word and the response word in the original sentence sequence terminates a “functionally complete” unit than when this position corresponds to the boundary of a “functionally incomplete” unit. These results are not predicted by existent “syntactic” theories of sentence perception units, and these theories are to that extent shown to be inadequate. A “functional” program for the study of sentence perception is suggested.
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Reference Notes
1. Carroll, J., & Tanenhaus, M.Sentence perception: The interaction of structural, functional, and contextual factors. Manuscript in preparation.
2. Carroll, J., & Tanenhaus, M.Functional clauses are the primary units of sentence segmentation. Indiana University Linguistics Club Mimeo, 1975.
3. McCawley, J.A review of Noam A. Chomsky’s Studies on semantics in generative grammar. Indiana University Linguistics Club Mimeo, 1973.
4. Jackendoff, R.Introduction to the “X-Bar” convention. Indiana University Linguistics Club Mimeo, 1974.
5. Tanenhaus, M., & Carroll, J.Sequence length as a sentence segmentation cue. Manuscript in preparation.
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This research was supported, in part, by NSF-BNS 76-04334. I am grateful to John D. Gould for comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Carroll, J.M. Sentence perception units and levels of syntactic structure. Perception & Psychophysics 23, 506–514 (1978). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03199527
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03199527