Dependencies first: eye tracking evidence from sentence production in Tagalog

Sebastian Sauppe, Elisabeth Norcliffe, Agnieszka E. Konopka, Robert Van Valin, Stephen Levinson

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingPublished conference contribution

Abstract

We investigated the time course of sentence formulation in Tagalog, a verb-initial language in which the verb obligatorily agrees with one of its arguments. Eye-tracked participants described pictures of transitive events. Fixations to the two characters in the events were compared across sentences differing in agreement marking and post-verbal word order. Fixation patterns show evidence for two temporally dissociated phases in Tagalog sentence production. The first, driven by verb agreement, involves early linking of concepts to syntactic functions; the second, driven by word order, involves incremental lexical encoding of these concepts. These results suggest that even the earliest stages of sentence formulation may be guided by a language's grammatical structure.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics
Subtitle of host publicationProceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
EditorsMarcus Knauff, Natalie Sabanz, Michael Pauen, Ipke Wachsmuth
Place of PublicationAustin, TX
PublisherCognitive Science Society
Pages1265-1270
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)978-0-9768318-9-1
Publication statusPublished - 2013
Event35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Berlin, Germany
Duration: 31 Jul 20133 Aug 2013

Conference

Conference35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityBerlin
Period31/07/133/08/13

Keywords

  • sentence planning
  • typology
  • eye-tracking

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