Prosody Disambiguates String-Identical Connected Clauses and Relative Clauses

Buhan Guo; Nino Grillo; Sven Mattys; Andrea Santi; Shayne Sloggett; Giuseppina Turco

Prosody Disambiguates String-Identical Connected Clauses and Relative Clauses

Buhan Guo, Nino Grillo, Sven Mattys, Andrea Santi, Shayne Sloggett, Giuseppina Turco

Research output: Contribution to conference › Poster › peer-review

Abstract

We investigated whether prosody disambiguates Clefts containing string
identical Connected Clauses (CC, 1) and Relative Clauses (RC, 2) in English. RCs
in (2) are nested within the element they modify and in focus. CCs (1) carry
given information and attach higher in the structure. -Who was laughing? -It
was [the editor] [CC that was laughing] -Who called? -It was [the editor [RC
that was laughing]] ([CC that called]) Exp1: A Planned Production (N=8) study
revealed clear tonal and durational differences at multiple regions. Exp2: To
test whether these prosodic cues disambiguate the two readings, 64
participants judged the acceptability of auditorily presented sentences in
response to preceding contexts and questions which elicited either a CC or RC
reading. The prosody of the target sentences either matched or mismatched
the context, leading to a 2(Context: CC vs. RC)*2(Prosody: Match vs.
Mismatch) design. Matched prosody was accepted more often (85%) than
mismatched prosody (59%; p<.01), indicating listeners’ sensitivity to the
prosodic differences between the two structures. This effect was smaller for
CC structures than for RC ones (p<.01), which suggests that prosodic
disambiguation is more important for nested RCs than for non-nested CC
structures.

Original language	English
Pages	397
Publication status	Published - 2 Sept 2023
Event	Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 28 - BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastián/Donostia, Spain Duration: 31 Aug 2023 → 2 Apr 2024 https://www.bcbl.eu/events/amlap/en/

Conference

Conference	Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 28
Abbreviated title	AMLaP23
Country/Territory	Spain
City	San Sebastián/Donostia
Period	31/08/23 → 2/04/24
Internet address	https://www.bcbl.eu/events/amlap/en/

Keywords

Psycholinguistics
Language Processing
Prosody

Access to Document

Guo et al. 2023 AMLaP PosterFinal published version, 6.66 MBLicence: Unspecified

Cite this

@conference{97087fd3405a48ea8c88f4d7333c3dbb,

title = "Prosody Disambiguates String-Identical Connected Clauses and Relative Clauses",

abstract = "We investigated whether prosody disambiguates Clefts containing stringidentical Connected Clauses (CC, 1) and Relative Clauses (RC, 2) in English. RCsin (2) are nested within the element they modify and in focus. CCs (1) carrygiven information and attach higher in the structure. -Who was laughing? -Itwas [the editor] [CC that was laughing] -Who called? -It was [the editor [RCthat was laughing]] ([CC that called]) Exp1: A Planned Production (N=8) studyrevealed clear tonal and durational differences at multiple regions. Exp2: Totest whether these prosodic cues disambiguate the two readings, 64participants judged the acceptability of auditorily presented sentences inresponse to preceding contexts and questions which elicited either a CC or RCreading. The prosody of the target sentences either matched or mismatchedthe context, leading to a 2(Context: CC vs. RC)*2(Prosody: Match vs.Mismatch) design. Matched prosody was accepted more often (85%) thanmismatched prosody (59%; p<.01), indicating listeners{\textquoteright} sensitivity to theprosodic differences between the two structures. This effect was smaller forCC structures than for RC ones (p<.01), which suggests that prosodicdisambiguation is more important for nested RCs than for non-nested CCstructures.",

keywords = "Psycholinguistics, Language Processing, Prosody",

author = "Buhan Guo and Nino Grillo and Sven Mattys and Andrea Santi and Shayne Sloggett and Giuseppina Turco",

year = "2023",

month = sep,

day = "2",

language = "English",

pages = "397",

note = "Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 28, AMLaP23 ; Conference date: 31-08-2023 Through 02-04-2024",

url = "https://www.bcbl.eu/events/amlap/en/",

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TY - CONF

T1 - Prosody Disambiguates String-Identical Connected Clauses and Relative Clauses

AU - Guo, Buhan

AU - Grillo, Nino

AU - Mattys, Sven

AU - Santi, Andrea

AU - Sloggett, Shayne

AU - Turco, Giuseppina

PY - 2023/9/2

Y1 - 2023/9/2

N2 - We investigated whether prosody disambiguates Clefts containing stringidentical Connected Clauses (CC, 1) and Relative Clauses (RC, 2) in English. RCsin (2) are nested within the element they modify and in focus. CCs (1) carrygiven information and attach higher in the structure. -Who was laughing? -Itwas [the editor] [CC that was laughing] -Who called? -It was [the editor [RCthat was laughing]] ([CC that called]) Exp1: A Planned Production (N=8) studyrevealed clear tonal and durational differences at multiple regions. Exp2: Totest whether these prosodic cues disambiguate the two readings, 64participants judged the acceptability of auditorily presented sentences inresponse to preceding contexts and questions which elicited either a CC or RCreading. The prosody of the target sentences either matched or mismatchedthe context, leading to a 2(Context: CC vs. RC)*2(Prosody: Match vs.Mismatch) design. Matched prosody was accepted more often (85%) thanmismatched prosody (59%; p<.01), indicating listeners’ sensitivity to theprosodic differences between the two structures. This effect was smaller forCC structures than for RC ones (p<.01), which suggests that prosodicdisambiguation is more important for nested RCs than for non-nested CCstructures.

AB - We investigated whether prosody disambiguates Clefts containing stringidentical Connected Clauses (CC, 1) and Relative Clauses (RC, 2) in English. RCsin (2) are nested within the element they modify and in focus. CCs (1) carrygiven information and attach higher in the structure. -Who was laughing? -Itwas [the editor] [CC that was laughing] -Who called? -It was [the editor [RCthat was laughing]] ([CC that called]) Exp1: A Planned Production (N=8) studyrevealed clear tonal and durational differences at multiple regions. Exp2: Totest whether these prosodic cues disambiguate the two readings, 64participants judged the acceptability of auditorily presented sentences inresponse to preceding contexts and questions which elicited either a CC or RCreading. The prosody of the target sentences either matched or mismatchedthe context, leading to a 2(Context: CC vs. RC)*2(Prosody: Match vs.Mismatch) design. Matched prosody was accepted more often (85%) thanmismatched prosody (59%; p<.01), indicating listeners’ sensitivity to theprosodic differences between the two structures. This effect was smaller forCC structures than for RC ones (p<.01), which suggests that prosodicdisambiguation is more important for nested RCs than for non-nested CCstructures.

KW - Psycholinguistics

KW - Language Processing

KW - Prosody

M3 - Poster

SP - 397

T2 - Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 28

Y2 - 31 August 2023 through 2 April 2024

ER -