Vol. 19:2 (2021) ► pp.332–362
Roles of verb and construction cues
Cross-language comparisons between English and Korean sentence comprehension
This study investigates how speakers of English and Korean, two typologically distinct languages, derive information from a verb and a construction to achieve sentence comprehension. In a sentence-sorting task, we manipulated verb semantics (real versus nonce) in each language. The results showed that participants from both languages were less inclined to sort sentences by a verb cue when the lexical-semantic information about a verb was obscured (i.e., nonce verb). In addition, the Korean-speaking participants were less likely affected by the verb semantics conditions than the English-speaking participants. These findings suggest the role of an argument structure construction in sentence comprehension as a co-contributor of sentence meaning, supporting the constructionist approach. The findings also imply language-specific mechanisms of sentence comprehension, contingent upon the varied impact of a verb on sentence meaning in English and Korean.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1Lexical approach
- 2.2Constructionist approach
- 2.3Typological differences between English and Korean
- 3.Present study
- 4.Methods
- 4.1Participants
- 4.2Stimuli
- 4.3Procedure
- 4.4Data coding and analysis
- 4.5Predictions
- 5.Results
- 6.Discussion
- Note
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References
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00087.shi