Robert J. Hartsuiker Martin J. Pickering Lexical guidance in sentence production: When do repeated verbs boost syntactic priming? Robert J. Hartsuiker Martin J. Pickering

Message-to-Sentence: One to many The cowboy is giving a banana to the burglar The cowboy is giving the burglar a banana Rob says that the cowboy the burglar a banana gives Rob says that the cowboy a banana to the burglar gives Rob says that the cowboy a banana gives to the burglar

What drives sentence structure? Role of Mental Lexicon Linguistic theories (Chomsky, 1995; Pollard & Sag, 1994) Psycholinguistic accounts (Bock & Levelt, 1994; Garrett, 1980; Vigliocco & Hartsuiker, 2002). Message: Lexical selection, Function assignment Properties of lexical items determine structure

Is lexical guidance absolute? Syntactic priming: tendency to re-use previously processed sentence structure (e.g., Bock, 1986; Bock & Griffin, 2000; Branigan et al., 2000; Ferreira, 2003; Hartsuiker & Westenberg, 2000; Pickering & Branigan, 1998; Potter & Lombardi, 1998) For example, sentence completion tasks: PO-prime: ‘The mechanic showed the torn overall...’ DO-prime: ‘The mechanic showed the race driver …’ Target: ‘The nun showed …’ Occurs independently of lexical overlap; but enhanced if prime and target share head (Verb, Pickering & Branigan, 1998; Noun, Cleland & Pickering, 2003)

Why verb-repetition effects? MESSAGE Give (X, Y, Z) Show (X, Y, Z) LEMMA GIVE SHOW PO DO

Are all structural decisions head-driven? If so: Word-order variations also affected by lexical overlap Lexical overlap effect in head-final constructions

Experiment 1 Hartsuiker & Westenberg (2000): priming of auxiliary - participle order, e.g., The man called the police because his wallet stolen was / was stolen Their study: different verbs (participle and auxiliary) condition only. 15% priming. Current study: replication with same verb condition

Experiment 1 DIFFERENT-VERBS Participle-final PRIME De verdachte beweerde dat hij door de politie schandelijk was __ The suspect claimed that he by the police scandalously was ____ SAME-VERBS Participle-final PRIME De verdachte gaf toe dat hij het slachtoffer op zijn hoofd had ____ The suspect admitted that he the victim on his head had ____ TARGET Vader vloekte luidkeels nadat hij met een hamer op zijn duim ____ Father cursed loudly after he with a hammer on his thumb ____

Results Expt 1 % aux-final response 15% priming (*) No effect of lexical overlap (Fs < 1) No Prime x Overlap interaction (Fs < 1) Lexical overlap does not affect word order priming

Experiment 2: Datives Head-final DO-prime laten zien De chauffeur verklaarde dat hij de agent _____ rijbewijs The driver declared that he the officer___ (show, licence) PO-Prime De chauffeur verklaarde dat hij het rijbewijs _____ agent The driver declared that he the licence___ (show, officer) TARGET Oscar cameraman De actrice zei dat ze _____ laten zien The actrice said that she ___ (Oscar, camera man, show)

Experiment 2: Results % DO responses 10% priming (*) No effect of lexical overlap (Fs < 1) No Priming x Overlap interaction (Fs < 1) Lexical overlap does not affect structural decision in head-final construction?

Experiment 3: Datives Head-first DO-Prime De chauffeur overhandigde de agent_____ rijbewijs The driver handed the officer___ (licence) PO-Prime De chauffeur overhandigde het rijbewijs_____ agent The driver handed the officer___ (officer) Target cameraman De actrice overhandigde _____ Oscar The actrice handed ___ (camera man, Oscar)

Experiment 3: Results %DO No significant priming No effect of lexical overlap (Fs < 1) No Priming x Overlap interaction (Fs < 1) Lexical overlap does not affect structural decision in head-first construction!

Completion term effect? DO-IO IO-DO Oscar camera man The actrice presented camera man Oscar Did the order in which terms were listed affect structural decisions?

Order Effects % DO Massive order of mention effect (22-32%) Placement of VERB (Experiment 2) irrelevant => Word accessibility overrides priming and lexical overlap effects

Implications Limits in extent that links verb-combinatorial nodes determine sentence structure A more potent determinant appears to be availability of arguments (Experiment 2-3) Consistent with availability hypothesis: Conceptual accessibility effects on inversions (Bock & Warren, 1985) Effects of position referent on picture (e.g., Hartsuiker & Kolk, 1998; Hartsuiker et al., 1999)

Implications Limits in extent that links verb-combinatorial nodes determine sentence structure No verb-repetition effect in word-order alternation (Expt 1) Suggests word-order computed at stage in which identity of lexical items no longer plays a role (cf. Hartsuiker & Westenberg, 2000)