THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC PROCESSES IN SENTENCECOMPREHENSION

Four experiments investigated the relationship between syntactic and s emantic processing. The first two experiments, which used a word-by-wo rd reading paradigm with a makes-sense judgement, demonstrated that ve rb argument structure is used to construct provisional interpretations at points in a sentence where the syntactic structure is ambiguous, a nd that resolution of syntactic ambiguity occurs even when it is not n ecessary for interpretation of the input. The last two experiments use d a cross-modal integration paradigm and found evidence that multiple syntactic representations are accessed or constructed at points of syn tactic ambiguity just as multiple meanings are accessed at points of l exical ambiguity. The experimental results are evaluated with regard t o serial autonomous models, strongly and weakly interactive models, an d a hybrid model proposed here.