Interclause Relations and Clausal Processing
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-1978
Abstract
In two experiments subjects were interrupted while listening to a two-clause sentence just before the last word of either the initial clause or the final clause. In Experiment I subjects were timed on their decision about whether a verb-object phrase was consistent in meaning with the sentence fragment they had just heard. Overall these decisions were made more quickly when a main clause was interrupted than when a subordinate clause was interrupted, but the size and direction of main-subordinate differences varied with the causal-temporal properties of subordinate clauses. In Experiment II subjects were timed on their decisions about whether a particular probe word had occurred in the sentence fragment. Target position effects differed for main and subordinate clauses, but again, these effects were related to causal-temporal relations between clauses. The two experiments together suggest that interclause semantic relations affect the immediate processing of clauses.
DOI
10.1016/S0022-5371(78)90304-3
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Townsend, David and Bever, Thomas G., "Interclause Relations and Clausal Processing" (1978). Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 291.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/psychology-facpubs/291