The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York
Understanding Doubly Center-Embedded Sentences Through Contrastive Focus
Abstract
dc:description.abstract<p>A production and comprehension-judgment experiment examined the relationship between prosody and comprehensibility in doubly center-embedded relative clause constructions in English. Lexically identical sentences with contrastive emphasis on NP1, NP2, or VP1, and a baseline version for comparison, were read aloud for recording and judged for comprehensibility. Contrast on NP2 and VP1 yielded higher comprehensibility judgments compared to baseline than contrast on NP1 compared to baseline. This was contrary to the prediction that contrast on NP1 would encourage the prosodic pattern NP1 || RC || VP3, which in previous work has been reported to be optimal for comprehension. Several explanations for this outcome are considered, including the possibility that contrastive focus does not reliably induce a following prosodic boundary if phrase lengths are not supportive of it. </p>
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- Master of Arts
- Level thesis:degree_level
- Master
- Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
- Linguistics
- Grantor
- The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York
- Year dc:date.available
- 2014
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Thorne, Ashley Caroline
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- Janet D. Fodor
Subjects
dc:subject × 6Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Repository record dc:identifier
- https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/476
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-1475