Sentence-frame frequency effects

• Published in: Language and cognitive processes Vol. 22; no. 5; pp. 661 - 688
• Main Authors: LIU, In-Mao, SUE, Lue-Ruey, CHEN, Sau-Chin, CHOU, Ting-Hsi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hove Taylor & Francis Group 01.08.2007; Colchester Taylor & Francis; Psychology Press
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Language; Miscellaneous; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Human; Verbal comprehension; Cognition; Language; Experimental study; Sentence
• ISSN: 0169-0965; 1464-0732
• DOI: 10.1080/01690960601000795

This study investigates how sentences of subject-verb-object type are comprehended. We adopted a usage-based approach by first selecting a high frequency and a low frequency sentence frame (SF) determined by the same verb, each SF being characterised by its subject and object belonging to some semantic categories for a specific verb. It was observed in Experiment 1 that the time of comprehending the verb and activating its specific sense through accessing the subject-object semantic features is a significant component of the total sentence comprehension time. Experiment 2 validated the definition of SF frequency by observing SF repetition effects without repetitions of any surface constituents, as long as the subject-object pairs for each verb are characterised by specific semantic features. It may further be concluded that it is not syntactic structure frequency, but sentence frame frequency that is critical in the reading of sentences.