A
Give an example of a globally ambiguous sentence:
I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
The cop saw the man with the binoculars.
10 points
Name a factor other than syntactic strategies that has been found to influence sentence processing.
Prosody, animacy, context
100 points
When participants read the sentence “The sparrow noticed…”, what, according to the Minimal Attachment strategy, do they expect to come next?
An NP object, such as “the worm”, and not a by-phrase (“by the bird-watcher”)
5,000 points
Give an example of a sentence which requires the verb to be singular, because the head noun is singular, but where participants are likely to trip up and accidentally produce a plural verb (hint: think of the form of the subject NP).
The key to the cabinets is on the table.
(or any other sentence with a singular head noun and a plural local noun)
STEAL
Provide an example of an error (anomalous sentence) that would be expected to elicit an N400 response in an ERP study (increased negativity about 400 msec after the onset of the stimulus).
Any sentence which is grammatical but semantically anomalous, e.g., “The dog was singing loudly”.
STEAL
Participants in an experiment repeat the sentence “John sent his sister a letter”. Then they are asked to describe this picture (one girl holding a gift, another girl about to receive the gift). What form will be produced if syntactic priming has occurred?
The girl gave her friend a gift.
ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION
The sentence “The criminal shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony” is ambiguous; disambiguate it so that the relative clause (in bold) unambiguously attaches high.
The criminal shot the servants of the actress who were on the balcony. OR
The criminal shot the servant of the actresses who was on the balcony.
DESTRUCTION
When participants are reading the sentence “The students learned that the professor graded their exams this morning”, what interpretation is predicted by the Late Closure strategy?
“this morning” should be the time of the professor grading the exams, rather than of when the students heard this
25 points
What factor has been shown by recent ERP studies of L2-learners to be more important than Age of Acquisition in affecting the nature of brain responses?
Proficiency / Exposure
DESTRUCTION
A young child has been primed on the prepositional dative structure. Now they hear “Give the kan/can…” and see a display containing: candy, kangaroo, flower, lion.
If a priming effect has occurred, where do you expect the child to look longest?
The candy (expecting a prepositional dative, as in Give the candy to the lion, NOT a double object dative, as in Give the kangaroo the flower).
10,000 points
A split-brain patient who has language in the left hemisphere is presented an object only to the left visual field. Which of the following will the patient be able to do with this object?
Name it? Draw it with the left hand? Draw it with the right hand? More than one of these?
Draw it with the left hand
3,000 point GIFT
Participants hear the sentence “Put the frog on the napkin…”. At this point, “on the napkin” might be the goal (where the frog should be placed) or the modifier (the frog with the napkin should be placed somewhere). Change the sentence so that the modifier interpretation becomes more likely (feel free to change both the verb and the PP).
Choose the frog with the fork
300 points
Give an example of a garden-path sentence containing a temporary ambiguity
The horse raced by the barn fell.
The old man the boats.
SELF-DESTRUCTION
What are three differences between Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia?
SELF-DESTRUCTION
Do we always process sentences fully? What is some evidence for shallow ("good enough") processing?
STEAL