Measurement of Syntactic Complexity Relative to Linguistic Context. Technical Report No. 255 [electronic resource] / Alice Davison and Richard Lutz.
A reaction-time experiment measured the time that subjects needed to read and comprehend a series of sentences, the syntactic form of which was systematically varied. The focus was on the effect of syntactic structure on processing time, reflected in reaction time in a neutral context, and the effec...
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
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[S.l.] :
Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse,
1982.
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MARC
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| 100 | 1 | |a Davison, Alice. | |
| 245 | 1 | 0 | |a Measurement of Syntactic Complexity Relative to Linguistic Context. Technical Report No. 255 |h [electronic resource] / |c Alice Davison and Richard Lutz. |
| 260 | |a [S.l.] : |b Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse, |c 1982. | ||
| 300 | |a 64 p. | ||
| 500 | |a ERIC Document Number: ED218598. | ||
| 500 | |a Sponsoring Agency: National Inst. of Education (ED), Washington, DC. |5 ericd. | ||
| 500 | |a Contract Number: 400-76-0116. |5 ericd. | ||
| 500 | |a Also distributed on microfiche by U.S. GPO under ED 1.310/2:218598. | ||
| 520 | |a A reaction-time experiment measured the time that subjects needed to read and comprehend a series of sentences, the syntactic form of which was systematically varied. The focus was on the effect of syntactic structure on processing time, reflected in reaction time in a neutral context, and the effect of prior context on time needed to process a given type of syntactic structure. Undergraduate students were presented paired items in randomized order on a computer screen. After all the experiment items were presented, the subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire about how they approached the task and what they felt about the items (interesting or not, natural sounding or nonnatural). The target sentences had two forms, related by transformations (passive, adverb preposing, there insertion, raising to subject, raising to object). These rules changed word order or grammatical relations. Results showed the transformed version, with a less perspicuous structure, was harder to process than the untransformed, in a neutral context. Reaction time decreased if the context mentioned the subject and the topic of the sentence. A mismatch between context and target subject/topic increased reaction time somewhat. The results have implications for the definition of sentence topic as subject rather than initial element and for grammatical complexity, which is not absolute. (Author/HOD) | ||
| 650 | 0 | 7 | |a Comprehension. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 0 | 7 | |a Context Clues. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 1 | 7 | |a Language Research. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 1 | 7 | |a Measurement Techniques. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 1 | 7 | |a Reaction Time. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 0 | 7 | |a Reading Research. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 1 | 7 | |a Sentence Structure. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 1 | 7 | |a Syntax. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 0 | 7 | |a Transformational Generative Grammar. |2 ericd. |
| 650 | 0 | 7 | |a Undergraduate Students. |2 ericd. |
| 700 | 1 | |a Lutz, Richard. | |
| 710 | 2 | |a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. |b Center for the Study of Reading. | |
| 710 | 2 | |a Bolt, Beranek, and Newman. | |
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