The processing and interpretation of verb phrase ellipsis constructions by children at normal and slowed speech rates.
The processing and interpretation of verb phrase ellipsis constructions by children at normal and slowed speech rates.
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DOI：
10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0281
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发表时间：
2012-01
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
S. M. Callahan;Matthew Walenski;T. Love
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文献类型：
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作者：
S. M. Callahan;Matthew Walenski;T. Love
目的考察儿童对动词短语省略结构的自动、在线结构加工能力和有意识、元语言反思能力。方法42名5至12岁的儿童听VP省略结构，涉及严格/草率的歧义（例如，“事故发生后，看门人从绳子上解开了自己，小学的消防队员也解开了绳子。“），其中省略短语（“也做了”）有两种解释：（a）严格（“解开看门人”）和（B）草率（“解开消防员”）。我们研究了这些句子在一个正常的语音速率与在线跨通道图片启动任务（n = 14）和离线图片匹配任务（n = 11）。这两个任务也与缓慢的语音输入（n = 17）。结果儿童在正常语速下对严格解释和草率解释均表现出启动效应，但仅对慢速输入的严格解释表现出启动效应。在离线状态下，孩子们表现出与成年人一样的偏好，即对正常速率输入的草率解释，但对放慢的语音表现出不同的模式。结论：儿童和成人对VP省略结构的在线理解和离线解释都依赖于一种混合的句法-语篇模型。该模型结合了VP重建的时间敏感句法过程（因缓慢输入而中断）和归因于平行性的时间延长的话语效果（因缓慢输入而保留）。
PURPOSE To examine children's comprehension of verb phrase (VP) ellipsis constructions in light of their automatic, online structural processing abilities and conscious, metalinguistic reflective skill. METHOD Forty-two children ages 5 through 12 years listened to VP ellipsis constructions involving the strict/sloppy ambiguity (e.g., "The janitor untangled himself from the rope and the fireman in the elementary school did too after the accident.") in which the ellipsis phrase ("did too") had 2 interpretations: (a) strict ("untangled the janitor") and (b) sloppy ("untangled the fireman"). We examined these sentences at a normal speech rate with an online cross-modal picture priming task (n = 14) and an offline sentence-picture matching task (n = 11). Both tasks were also given with slowed speech input (n = 17). RESULTS Children showed priming for both the strict and sloppy interpretations at a normal speech rate but only for the strict interpretation with slowed input. Offline, children displayed an adultlike preference for the sloppy interpretation with normal-rate input but a divergent pattern with slowed speech. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that children and adults rely on a hybrid syntax-discourse model for the online comprehension and offline interpretation of VP ellipsis constructions. This model incorporates a temporally sensitive syntactic process of VP reconstruction (disrupted with slow input) and a temporally protracted discourse effect attributed to parallelism (preserved with slow input).