Grammatical planning, execution, and control in written sentence production

• Published in: Reading & writing Vol. 23; no. 7; pp. 777 - 801
• Main Author: Nottbusch, Guido
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.08.2010; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Cognitive Processes; Coordination; Data Analysis; Difficulty Level; Education; Eye Movements; Grammar; Grammaticality; Graphs; Hypothesis Testing; Language and Literature; Linguistics; Literacy; Morphemes; Motor Reactions; Neurology; Noun Phrases; Nouns; Phonology; Phrase Structure; Phrases; Psycholinguistics; Psychomotor Skills; Semantics; Sentence Structure; Sentences; Social Sciences; Subject; Subordination; Syllables; Syntactic analysis; Syntactic Structures; Word Frequency; Writing; Writing (Composition); Writing Processes; New York; United States > US; Sentence production; Eye tracking; Monitoring; Keystroke logging; Scope of grammatical planning
• ISSN: 0922-4777; 1573-0905
• DOI: 10.1007/s11145-009-9188-4

In this study participants were asked to describe pictured events in one type-written sentence, containing one of two different syntactic structures (subordinated vs. coordinated subject noun phrases). According to the hypothesis, the larger subordinated structure (one noun phrase including a second, subordinated, one) should be cognitively more costly and will be planned before the start of the production, whereas the coordinated structure, consisting of two syntactically equal noun phrases, can be planned locally in an incremental fashion. The hypothesis was confirmed by the analysis of the word-initial keystroke latencies as well as the eye movements towards the stimulus, indicating a stronger tendency to incremental planning in case of the coordinated structure.