6. The recognition of ambiguity.
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Gary D. Prideaux
Abstract
The syntactic distinction between deep and surface structure ambiguity (MacKay & Bever, 1967) is challenged on theoretical and empirical grounds. It is argued that both types of ambiguity can be resolved at the level of surface syntactic structure, contrary to the MacKay & Bever hypothesis that the types are syntactically distinct and have distinct behavioural consequences. A psycholinguistic experiment is reported which investigated naive native speakers' recognition of ambiguity. No significant difference in error scores was found between the two types of structural ambiguity, although both differed significantly from lexical ambiguity. The MacKay & Bever results are reexamined and it is concluded that their results can be accounted for in terms of surface clause complexity of the stimuli rather than in terms of two types of structural ambiguity.
Abstract
The syntactic distinction between deep and surface structure ambiguity (MacKay & Bever, 1967) is challenged on theoretical and empirical grounds. It is argued that both types of ambiguity can be resolved at the level of surface syntactic structure, contrary to the MacKay & Bever hypothesis that the types are syntactically distinct and have distinct behavioural consequences. A psycholinguistic experiment is reported which investigated naive native speakers' recognition of ambiguity. No significant difference in error scores was found between the two types of structural ambiguity, although both differed significantly from lexical ambiguity. The MacKay & Bever results are reexamined and it is concluded that their results can be accounted for in terms of surface clause complexity of the stimuli rather than in terms of two types of structural ambiguity.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
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PART I: THEORETICAL BASES FOR EXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICS (editorial introduction)
- 1. On paraphrase. 21
- 2. What is structural ambiguity? 35
- 3. On theories of focus. 55
- 4. Preliminaries to the experimental investigation of style in language. 65
- 5. English pluralization: A testing ground for rule evaluation. 81
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PART II: EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS (editorial introduction)
- 1. Grammatical properties of sentences as a basis for concept formation. 121
- 2. Grammatical voice and illocutionary meaning in an aural concept formation task. 141
- 3. Grammatical simplicity or performative efficiency? 157
- 4. A performative definition of sentence relatedness. 175
- 5. Paraphrase relationships among clefted sentences. 185
- 6. The recognition of ambiguity. 203
- 7. An experimental investigation of focus. 215
- 8. A discriminant function analysis of co-variation of a number of syntactic devices in five prose genres. 231
- 9. Rule learning and the English inflections (with special emphasis on the plural). 247
- 10. Perceptual dimensions of phonemic recognition. 273
- Epilogue 293
- Bibliography 309
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
PART I: THEORETICAL BASES FOR EXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICS (editorial introduction)
- 1. On paraphrase. 21
- 2. What is structural ambiguity? 35
- 3. On theories of focus. 55
- 4. Preliminaries to the experimental investigation of style in language. 65
- 5. English pluralization: A testing ground for rule evaluation. 81
-
PART II: EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS (editorial introduction)
- 1. Grammatical properties of sentences as a basis for concept formation. 121
- 2. Grammatical voice and illocutionary meaning in an aural concept formation task. 141
- 3. Grammatical simplicity or performative efficiency? 157
- 4. A performative definition of sentence relatedness. 175
- 5. Paraphrase relationships among clefted sentences. 185
- 6. The recognition of ambiguity. 203
- 7. An experimental investigation of focus. 215
- 8. A discriminant function analysis of co-variation of a number of syntactic devices in five prose genres. 231
- 9. Rule learning and the English inflections (with special emphasis on the plural). 247
- 10. Perceptual dimensions of phonemic recognition. 273
- Epilogue 293
- Bibliography 309
