Paolazzi, Caterina Laura, Grillo, Nino orcid.org/0000-0002-8224-365X, Cera, Claudia et al. (4 more authors) (2021) Eyetracking while reading passives:an event structure account of difficulty. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. pp. 135-153. ISSN 2327-3801
Abstract
Among existing accounts of passivisation difficulty, some argue it depends on the predicate semantics (i.e. passives are more difficult with subject-experiencer than agent-patient verbs). Inconsistent with the accounts that predict passive difficulty, Paolazzi et al. (2019) found that passives were read faster than actives at the verb and object by-phrase in a series of self-paced reading experiments, with no modulation of verb type. However, self-paced reading provides limited direct measurement of late revision/interpretive processing. We used modified stimuli from Paolazzi et al. (2019) to re-examine this issue in two eye-tracking while reading experiments. We found that in late measures, passives with subject-experiencer verbs had longer fixation durations than actives at the verb and two subsequent regions but no difference was observed across agent-patient verbs. Subject-experiencer verbs provide a state, but the passive structure requires an event. Thus, the required eventive interpretation is coerced with subject-experiencers (if possible) and induces difficulty.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Funding Information: We would like to acknowledge BA/Leverhulme Small Grants SRG\170108 to Andrea Santi. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. |
Keywords: | Event structure,eye-tracking,passive sentence,sentence processing |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Language and Linguistic Science (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 24 Jun 2022 10:40 |
Last Modified: | 27 Dec 2024 00:14 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2021.1946108 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/23273798.2021.1946108 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:188390 |
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Description: Eyetracking while reading passives: an event structure account of difficulty
Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 2.5