{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24453"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24453","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Prosody and syntactic processing","abstract":"This dissertation examines whether and how two main aspects of prosody, intonational phrase boundaries and pitch accents, are used in syntactic processing. Traditionally, it has been argued that while intonational phrase boundaries interact with syntactic structure, pitch accents do not. One apparent exception to this view is work by Schafer, Carter, Clifton, and Frazier (1996) that suggests that pitch accents, like intonational phrase boundaries, play a primary role in attachment ambiguity resolution. Chapter 2 provides empirical evidence that resolves these conflicting views in the literature by examining what factors underlie previously established accent attachment effects. The results from four experiments show that these effects are the result of a post-sentence bias to select salient information as the answer to the post-sentence query rather than the result of a syntactic processing mechanism, suggesting that pitch accents may not directly signal syntactic attachment. Chapters 3 and 4 explore two unanswered questions with respect to the role intonational phrase boundaries play in syntactic processing. Chapter 3 presents three visual world eye-tracking experiments that examine what types of information intonational phrase boundaries provide to the processing system. The findings suggest that intonational phrase boundaries provide information about their local syntactic and semantic context that allows listeners to predict upcoming linguistic structure. Chapter 4 investigates individual differences in the use of intonational phrase boundaries in attachment ambiguity resolution. The results suggest that the listeners’ ability to use boundary information in syntactic processing is positively correlated with working memory capacity. High span listeners are more likely to use boundary information in syntactic ambiguity resolution than low span listeners.","abstract_html":"This dissertation examines whether and how two main aspects of prosody, intonational phrase boundaries and pitch accents, are used in syntactic processing. Traditionally, it has been argued that while intonational phrase boundaries interact with syntactic structure, pitch accents do not. One apparent exception to this view is work by Schafer, Carter, Clifton, and Frazier (1996) that suggests that pitch accents, like intonational phrase boundaries, play a primary role in attachment ambiguity resolution. Chapter 2 provides empirical evidence that resolves these conflicting views in the literature by examining what factors underlie previously established accent attachment effects. The results from four experiments show that these effects are the result of a post-sentence bias to select salient information as the answer to the post-sentence query rather than the result of a syntactic processing mechanism, suggesting that pitch accents may not directly signal syntactic attachment. Chapters 3 and 4 explore two unanswered questions with respect to the role intonational phrase boundaries play in syntactic processing. Chapter 3 presents three visual world eye-tracking experiments that examine what types of information intonational phrase boundaries provide to the processing system. The findings suggest that intonational phrase boundaries provide information about their local syntactic and semantic context that allows listeners to predict upcoming linguistic structure. Chapter 4 investigates individual differences in the use of intonational phrase boundaries in attachment ambiguity resolution. The results suggest that the listeners’ ability to use boundary information in syntactic processing is positively correlated with working memory capacity. High span listeners are more likely to use boundary information in syntactic ambiguity resolution than low span listeners.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Lee, Eun Kyung"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Linguistics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Watson, Duane G.","Garnsey, Susan M.","Cole, Jennifer S.","Shih, Chilin"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-25T14:26:19Z","date_published":"2011-05-25T14:26:19Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:23Z","subjects":["prosody","syntactic processing","intonational boundaries","pitch accents","relative clauses"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2011 Eun Kyung Lee"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24453","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Watson, Duane G.","Garnsey, Susan M.","Cole, Jennifer S.","Shih, Chilin"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Lee, Eun Kyung"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-25T14:26:19Z","2013-05-26T10:00:17Z","2011-05"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Linguistics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["prosody","syntactic processing","intonational boundaries","pitch accents","relative clauses"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2011 Eun Kyung Lee"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24453"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This dissertation examines whether and how two main aspects of prosody, intonational phrase boundaries and pitch accents, are used in syntactic processing. Traditionally, it has been argued that while intonational phrase boundaries interact with syntactic structure, pitch accents do not. One apparent exception to this view is work by Schafer, Carter, Clifton, and Frazier (1996) that suggests that pitch accents, like intonational phrase boundaries, play a primary role in attachment ambiguity resolution. Chapter 2 provides empirical evidence that resolves these conflicting views in the literature by examining what factors underlie previously established accent attachment effects. The results from four experiments show that these effects are the result of a post-sentence bias to select salient information as the answer to the post-sentence query rather than the result of a syntactic processing mechanism, suggesting that pitch accents may not directly signal syntactic attachment. Chapters 3 and 4 explore two unanswered questions with respect to the role intonational phrase boundaries play in syntactic processing. Chapter 3 presents three visual world eye-tracking experiments that examine what types of information intonational phrase boundaries provide to the processing system. The findings suggest that intonational phrase boundaries provide information about their local syntactic and semantic context that allows listeners to predict upcoming linguistic structure. Chapter 4 investigates individual differences in the use of intonational phrase boundaries in attachment ambiguity resolution. The results suggest that the listeners’ ability to use boundary information in syntactic processing is positively correlated with working memory capacity. High span listeners are more likely to use boundary information in syntactic ambiguity resolution than low span listeners.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2011-04-20T13:48:58Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Lee_EunKyung.pdf: 1425693 bytes, checksum: 57d47a1c28f495e1d38d01e04a30b7a2 (MD5) Lee_EunKyung.pdf: 1425623 bytes, checksum: 1eb3a88506acc1b5c8c9f89fcd000c26 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-25T14:26:19Z (GMT). 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Traditionally, it has been argued that while intonational phrase boundaries interact with syntactic structure, pitch accents do not. One apparent exception to this view is work by Schafer, Carter, Clifton, and Frazier (1996) that suggests that pitch accents, like intonational phrase boundaries, play a primary role in attachment ambiguity resolution. Chapter 2 provides empirical evidence that resolves these conflicting views in the literature by examining what factors underlie previously established accent attachment effects. The results from four experiments show that these effects are the result of a post-sentence bias to select salient information as the answer to the post-sentence query rather than the result of a syntactic processing mechanism, suggesting that pitch accents may not directly signal syntactic attachment. Chapters 3 and 4 explore two unanswered questions with respect to the role intonational phrase boundaries play in syntactic processing. Chapter 3 presents three visual world eye-tracking experiments that examine what types of information intonational phrase boundaries provide to the processing system. The findings suggest that intonational phrase boundaries provide information about their local syntactic and semantic context that allows listeners to predict upcoming linguistic structure. Chapter 4 investigates individual differences in the use of intonational phrase boundaries in attachment ambiguity resolution. The results suggest that the listeners’ ability to use boundary information in syntactic processing is positively correlated with working memory capacity. High span listeners are more likely to use boundary information in syntactic ambiguity resolution than low span listeners.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2011-04-20T13:48:58Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Lee_EunKyung.pdf: 1425693 bytes, checksum: 57d47a1c28f495e1d38d01e04a30b7a2 (MD5) Lee_EunKyung.pdf: 1425623 bytes, checksum: 1eb3a88506acc1b5c8c9f89fcd000c26 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-25T14:26:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Lee_EunKyung.pdf: 1425623 bytes, checksum: 1eb3a88506acc1b5c8c9f89fcd000c26 (MD5) license.txt: 4055 bytes, checksum: 3df272b566207059ab2c363eee99edad (MD5)","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by William Ingram (wingram2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-25T14:29:42Z Item is restricted until 2013-05-25T14:29:35Z","Item reinstated by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-05-26T10:00:17Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Dissertations and Theses (ID: 204) Dissertations and Theses - Linguistics (ID: 648) No. of bitstreams: 2 Lee_EunKyung.pdf: 1425623 bytes, checksum: 1eb3a88506acc1b5c8c9f89fcd000c26 (MD5) license.txt: 4055 bytes, checksum: 3df272b566207059ab2c363eee99edad (MD5)","Item released from any restrictions by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-05-26T10:00:17Z"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24453"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2011 Eun Kyung Lee"],"dc:subject":["prosody","syntactic processing","intonational boundaries","pitch accents","relative clauses"],"dc:title":["Prosody and syntactic processing"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Linguistics"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:23Z"}