This was a conceptual replication and extension using self-paces reading of Staub, Adrian, Charles Clifton, and Lyn Frazier (2006). “Heavy NP Shift is the parser’s last resort: Evidence from Eye movements”. In: Journal of Memory and Language 54.3, pp. 389–406. Using eye-tracking, Staub et al. had found that there are effects of obligatoriness of the object in English structures with Heavy NP Shift in English. Specifically, they found a relative slow-down on adverbials intervening between the verb and the object in conditions where the object was obligatory and a relative speeding up on the shifted NP. The aim was to replicate these two findings and to show that the slow-down effect persists on a second adverbial between verb and shifted NP.
The design is 2x2 with the factors of obligatoriness (obligatory vs. optional) and number of adverbials (one vs. two). A sample set of items looks as follows:
optional one Adv: Sara attacked with no mercy the red ants living on the windowsill.
optional two Adv: Sara attacked for ten minutes with no mercy the red ants living on the windowsill.
obligatory one Adv: Sara bothered with no mercy the red ants living on the windowsill.
obligatory two Adv: Sara bothered for ten minutes with no mercy the red ants living on the windowsill.
The experiment is reported in Abels, Klaus and Ad Neeleman (to appear). “Linear Asymmetries and Incremental Parsing”. In: Language.
Built with Experiment
This was a conceptual replication and extension using self-paces reading of Staub, Adrian, Charles Clifton, and Lyn Frazier (2006). “Heavy NP Shift is the parser’s last resort: Evidence from Eye movements”. In: Journal of Memory and Language 54.3, pp. 389–406. Using eye-tracking, Staub et al. had found that there are effects of obligatoriness of the object in English structures with Heavy NP Shift in English. Specifically, they found a relative slow-down on adverbials intervening between the verb and the object in conditions where the object was obligatory and a relative speeding up on the shifted NP. The aim was to replicate these two findings and to show that the slow-down effect persists on a second adverbial between verb and shifted NP.
The design is 2x2 with the factors of obligatoriness (obligatory vs. optional) and number of adverbials (one vs. two). A sample set of items looks as follows:
optional one Adv: Sara attacked with no mercy the red ants living on the windowsill.
optional two Adv: Sara attacked for ten minutes with no mercy the red ants living on the windowsill.
obligatory one Adv: Sara bothered with no mercy the red ants living on the windowsill.
obligatory two Adv: Sara bothered for ten minutes with no mercy the red ants living on the windowsill.
The method is a moving window self-paced reading paradigm.
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
Staub, Adrian, Charles Clifton, and Lyn Frazier (2006). “Heavy NP Shift is the parser’s last resort: Evidence from Eye movements”. In: Journal of Memory and Language 54.3, pp. 389–406.
https://doi-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/10.1016/j.jml.2005.12.002
Built with Task Builder 1
This is a moving window self-paced reading task. Reaction times for button presses are recorded as well as answers to comprehension questions.
The four lists contain the experimental stimuli as described in the description of the experiment above: heavy XP shift across one ore two adverbials with obligatory/optional objects) as well as fillers. The fifth list contains practice items. The stimuli are based on those for experiment 1 in Staub et al (2006).
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
Staub, Adrian, Charles Clifton, and Lyn Frazier (2006). “Heavy NP Shift is the parser’s last resort: Evidence from Eye movements”. In: Journal of Memory and Language 54.3, pp. 389–406.
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