THEMATIC ROLES, FOCUS AND THE REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS

Two experiments investigated the focusing properties of thematic roles , while a third experiment investigated the view that thematic role pr eferences reflect a focusing on the consequences of the represented ev ent. Sentence continuation tasks were used in which subjects wrote con tinuations to sentence fragments containing two antecedents, each occu pying a different thematic role. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 sh owed a preference for referring to a particular thematic role regardle ss of the presence or absence of a pronoun at the start of the continu ation and regardless of whether the continuation was part of a differe nt sentence from the one containing the antecedents (Experiment 1) or part of the same sentence (Experiment 2). These preferences were inter preted as being due to a focus on the consequences of the represented event in a mental model of the sentence. Experiment 3 tested this inte rpretation by using sentence fragments that ended in so (a connective that reinforces the focus on consequences) or because (a connective th at conflicts with the focus on consequences). The results confirmed th e interpretation: the observed preferences were maintained with so but modified by because. The results are discussed in terms of the struct ure of represented events, top-down and bottom-up processes, and thema tic hierarchies. The first mention effect in pronoun comprehension is also discussed.