Investigating thematic roles through implicit learning: Evidence from light verb constructions

Eva Wittenberg, Manizeh Khan, Jesse Snedeker

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

The syntactic structure of a sentence is usually a strong predictor of its meaning: Each argument noun phrase (i.e., Subject and Object) should map onto exactly one thematic role (i.e., Agent and Patient, respectively). Some constructions, however, are exceptions to this pattern. This paper investigates how the syntactic structure of an utterance contributes to its construal, using ditransitive English light verb constructions, such as "Nils gave a hug to his brother," as an example of such mismatches: Hugging is a two-role event, but the ditransitive syntactic structure suggests a three-role event. Data from an eye-tracking experiment and behavioral categorization data reveal that listeners learn to categorize sentences according to the number of thematic roles they convey, independent of their syntax. Light verb constructions, however, seem to form a category of their own, in which the syntactic structure leads listeners down an initial incorrect assignment of thematic roles, from which they only partly recover. These results suggest an automatic influence of syntactic argument structure on semantic interpretation and event construal, even in highly frequent constructions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1089
JournalFrontiers in Psychology
Volume8
Issue numberJUN
DOIs
StatePublished - 30 Jun 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Argument structure
  • Eye tracking
  • Implicit learning
  • Light verb constructions
  • Semantics
  • Syntactic alternations
  • Syntax
  • Thematic roles

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