Conceptual Plurality in Japanese EFL Learners Online Sentence Processing: A Case of Garden-path Sentences with Reciprocal Verbs

Conceptual Plurality in Japanese EFL Learners’

Online Sentence Processing: A Case of

Garden-path Sentences with Reciprocal Verbs

August 23, 201541st JASELE

Kumamoto Gakuen University

Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

2

• Grammatically (morphologically) plural• “PUT -s” • cats, dogs, cups, etc.

• Conceptually plural• plurale tantum

• scissors, pants <-these are single entity• collective nouns

• family, staff, team• grammatically singular but conceptually plural

Background3

Conceptual Plurality

• Verbs that involves two or more people and each of them is “both Agent and Target” in the actions (Dixon, 2005, p.65)

• Typically followed by each other (but not always)• Non-reciprocal use

• John met Mary. (John: Agent, Mary: Patient or Target)

• Reciprocal use• John and Mary met. (Both: Agent and Patient)• *John met. vs. They met.

4Introduction

Reciprocal verbs

• Requires readers reanalysisAs the parents left their child played the guitar nicely.

5Introduction

Garden-path sentences

• Requires readers reanalysis As the parents left their child played the guitar nicely.

[As the parents left,] their child played the guitar nicely.

6Introduction

Garden-path sentences

NP ??

NP V

DOV

V DOSubjective NP

intransitive

Findings of This Study• L2 learners may be able to conceptually

process conjoined NPs as plural• The pattern that L2 learners showed was similar

to the results of previous L1 studies

7Introduction

Yu TAMURA1 Junya FUKUTA2

Yoshito NISHIMURA1

Yui HARADA1

Kazuhisa HARA1

Daiki KATO1

1Graduate School, Nagoya Univ.2Graduate School, Nagoya Univ. / The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

8


9

• Extensively investigated in the field of L1 psycholinguistics (e.g., Bock & Cutting, 1992; Bock & Eberhard, 1993; Haskell & MacDonald, 2003; Humphreys & Bock, 2005; Patson & Ferreira, 2009; Patson & Warren, 2010; Patson, George, & Warren, 2014, Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Semenza, 1995)

• L2 learners might be able to use conceptual plural information in online processing (e.g., Hoshino, Dussias, & Kroll, 2010; Kusanagi, Tamura, & Fukuta, 2015; Tamura & Nishimura, 2015)

Background10


• How numerosity or number information is represented mentally.• cat, cats

• Sometimes, it’s ambiguous• some cats

• exact number unspecified• the soldiers

• a single undifferentiated group?• a set of differentiated group?

11Introduction


• Kaup, Kelter, & Habel (2002)• John and Mary went shopping.

A. They bought a gift.B. Both bought a gift.

• How many gifts did John and Mary buy?

12Introduction


A. They bought a gift.• 1 gift: John and Mary represented as group

B. Both bought a gift.• 2 gifts : John bought one and Mary bought one• “a gift” (singular) is distributed

• Human sentence processor is sensitive to the difference between group and distributed object.

13Introduction


• Humphreys & Bock (2005)• distributional effects of collective nouns• Sentence completion task

A. The gang on the motorcycles…B. The gang near the motorcycles…

• plural verbs are produced more in A than B• “gang” is distributed to each motorcycles

14Introduction


• Patson & Ferreira (2009)• Used reciprocal verbs and garden-path

sentences• Fingings

• Plurality is ambiguously represented in processing

• constituent of plural set must be clearly specified (e.g., conjoined NP)

15Introduction

Previous L1 Research

• Previous research• Even highly proficient L2 learners whose L1

doesn’t have number agreement cannot fully acquire the plural marker -s (e.g., Chen et al., 2007; Jiang, 2004; 2007)

• It may depend on the linguistic structures and task (e.g., Lim & Christianson, 2014; Song, 2015)

Background16

Acquisition of plurality

• Plural marking (Shibuya & Wakabayashi, 2008) • Conjoined NP (e.g., Tom and Mary): salient• Plural definite (e.g., The chefs): less salient -> Japanese learners of English (JLE) are

sensitive to number disagreement in the case of conjoined NP

Background17


• Processing of conjoined NP (Tamura et al., in prep)

• His wife and son *is/are in the cottage now.-> Singular agreement was faster

• The writer and the director *was/were at this party.

-> No differenceJLE cannot interpret conjoined NP as plural in online sentence processing?

Background18


• Trenkic, Mirovic, & Altmann (2014)“Being able to detect violations in ungrammatical sentences, however, is not the same as being able to facilitatively utilise grammatical information in the processing of well-formed sentences.” (p.239)

• Vainio, Pajunen, & Hyona (2015)“the non-violation paradigm allows its user to examine how linguistic structures…are utilized during online language processing in the absence of grammatical violations” (p.4)

Background19

Limitation of anomaly detection

• Previous research on processing and acquisition of plural features (e.g., Shibuya and Wakabayashi, 2008; Tamura et al., in prep)

• anomaly detection• number agreement

• The failure of detecting number agreement mismatch does not tell us much about WHY it happened.• failure of assigning plural features?• failure of matching number features?

Background20

Motivation of the study

• Plurality is much explicit in conjoined NP than plural definite description

• Reciprocal verbs require two thematic roles A. While the boy and the girl dated the performer

played the piano on the stage.B. While the teenagers dated the performer played

the piano on the stage.

In processing conjoined NP with reciprocal verbs, no garden-path effects should be found.

Background21

Hypothesis


22

• 32 Japanese undergraduate and graduate students

• 58% had some experience in staying in English-speaking countries(Min = 2 weeks, Max = 54 months)

Table 1. Background Information of the Participants

The Present Study23

Participants

Age TOEIC ScoreN M SD M SD

Participants 32 24.77 5.34 824.22 113.12

• Twenty test items in four conditionsA. While the boy and the girl dated the

performer played the piano on the stage.B. While the teenagers dated the performer

played the piano on the stage.C. While the boy and the girl paid the performer

played the piano on the stage.D. While the teenagers paid the performer

played the piano on the stage.

The Present Study24

Stimuli

Conj/recip

PDD/recip

Conj/OT

PDD/OT

• Ten reciprocal verbs• fight, hug, date, kiss, argue, embrace, meet, divorce, marry, battle

• Ten optionally transitive verbs• criticise, write, pay, investigate, email, search, negotiate, leave, recover, protest

• Five conjunctions equally distributed• when, while, as, after, because

(based on Patson & Ferreira, 2009)

The Present Study25

Stimuli

• Self-paced reading task on PC• Moving window and word by word reading

The Present Study26

Experiment

_____ __ __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ____

While __ __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ____

____ the __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ____

____ __ boy __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ _______ __ boy __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ _______ ___ __ ___ _____ __ _____ stage. ___

____ __ ___ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ 次へ

• Target regionsA. While the boy and the girl dated the

performer played the piano on the stage.B. While the teenagers dated the performer

played the piano on the stage.C. While the boy and the girl paid the performer

played the piano on the stage.D. While the teenagers paid the performer

played the piano on the stage.

The Present Study27

Experiment

• Outliers1. Each participant’s means and SDs of RTs in each condition were calculated

2. Responses above the Mean RTs +/- 3SD were removed

3. Responses below 200ms were removed4. Overall, 4.5% of all the responses were removed

The Present Study28

Analysis

• Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Model (GLMM) by R 3.2.0• Explanatory variables

• Verb types (2 levels): • reciprocal, optionally transitive (OT)

• Noun types (2 levels): • Conjoined, plural definite description (PDD)

• Response variables• Raw RTs

• Distribution family and link function• Gamma distribution and log-link

• Participants with low proficiency (n = 4) were removed

The Present Study29

Analysis


30

31

Reading Time

Results

V the N targetV D N

Conj/recip 617(212)

531(142)

543(182)

600(248)

498(116)

543(163)

PDD/recip 758(428)

516(116)

594(226)

721(369)

550(219)

593(250)

Conj/OT 679(351)

505(121)

535(147)

643(230)

561(224)

607(238)

PDD/OT 723(250)

518(143)

697(183)

697(229)

561(183)

558(154)

Table 2. Mean RTs (ms) and SDs (parentheses) in each condition

N = 28

32

Reading Time

Results

33

Reading Time

Results

34

Reading Time

Results

• Target V• The best model justified by AIC and BIC• rt ~ conj + (1 | participant) + (1 | item)• Only the main effect of noun type

•Number of observation: 501•Participant : 28• Item: 20

Model Selection

Results35

• Target V• Random effects (intercepts)

• Fixed effects

Model Selection

Results36

Variance SDparticipant 0.05 0.22

item 0.01 0.12

Residual 0.18 0.42

Estimate SE t p

intercepts 6.44 0.09 69.80 p < .001

conj -0.11 0.03 -3.31 p < .001

• Determiner (one word after the Target V)• The best model justified by AIC and BIC• rt ~ recip + conj + recip:conj + (1 + conj + recip | participant) + (1 + conj | item)

• interaction was included (but not significant)• Number of observation: 547• Participant : 28• Item: 20

Model Selection

Results37

• Determiner (one word after the Target V)• Random effects (intercepts & slope)

•Fixed effects

Model Selection

Results38

Variance SDparticipant (intercept) 0.03 0.17

conj 0.24 0.15recip 0.22 0.14

item (intercept) > 0.01 0.05conj 0.02 0.14

Residual 0.140 0.37

Estimate SE t pintercepts 6.22 0.06 98.97 p < .001

recip -0.06 0.05 -1.27 .21conj -0.05 0.07 -0.82 .41

recip:conj -0.07 0.05 -1.37 .17

• Object Noun (two words after the Target V)• The best model justified by AIC and BIC• rt ~ recip + conj + recip:conj + (1 + conj + recip | participant) + (1 | item)

• interaction was included• Number of observation: 532• Participant : 28• Item: 20

Model Selection

Results39

•Object Noun (two words after the Target V)• Random effects (intercepts & slope)

•Fixed effects

Model Selection

Results40

Variance SDparticipant (intercept) 0.04 0.19

conj 0.02 0.13recip 0.02 0.13

item (intercept) 0.01 0.12Residual 0.13 0.37

Estimate SE t pintercepts 6.28 0.09 69.31 p < .001

recip -0.04 0.04 -0.84 .21conj -0.02 0.04 -0.42 .41

recip:conj -0.12 0.05 -2.21 0.03


41

• Target V• Conj/recip, Conj/OT < PDD/OT, PDD/recip

• Determiner (one word after the Target V)• No difference

• Object noun (two words after the Target V)• PDD/OT < Conj/OT (β = -0.09, t = -1.74, p = .08)• Conj/recip < Conj/OT (β = -0.10, t = -2.49, p = .01)• PDD/recip - PDD/OT (β = 0.03, t = 0.79, p = .43)• Conj/recip - PDD/recip ( β = 0.04, t = 0.86, p = .40)

Discussion42

RT differences

• Conjoined NP and PDD were processed differently

• The participants succeeded in assigning reciprocality to reciprocal verbs only when the subject was conjoined

Discussion43

Processing of Plurals

• Subject NP: conjoined• Verb: optionally transitive-> The participants still looked for object noun

Discussion44


Fast RT in conjoined NP with reciprocal verbs were not only because of conjoined NP but also reciprocal verbs

Discussion45


• Conjoined NP

• Plural definite description

Discussion46


※It is possible that the participants failed to process plural marker -s

Discussion47

Processing of PluralsStructure of NP Methodology Results

Shibuya & Wakabayashi

(2008)

[Proper Noun]

and

[Proper Noun]

overuse of 3rd person singular -s sensitive

Tamura et al. (in prep)

[Det + Noun]

and

[Det + Noun]

number agreement with copula be insensitive

This study[Det + Noun]

and

[Det + Noun]

garden-path sentences with reciprocal verbs

conceptuallysensitive

• Possible causes of conflicting results• 3rd person singular -s vs. copula be• Proper nouns vs. [Det + N]

• Tom and Mary vs. the wife and the husband• Confirming the conceptual representation of

plurals (e.g., Hoshino, Dussias, & Kroll, 2010; Kusanagi, Tamura, & Fukuta, 2015; Tamura & Nishimura, 2015)

Discussion48


• Plurality assignment to PDD • Shibuya & Wakabayashi (2008) -> NO• What about the case of copula be?

• Conceptual representation of • [quantifier + N] (e.g., many cats, some cats)• [numerals + N] (e.g., two cats, three cats)• singularity (e.g., a cat, one thing)

Discussion49

Future Research

• Self-paced reading task • cannot capture the processing of reanalysis• eye-tracking would be better?

• Comprehension questions• no test items were followed by CQ• unclear as to the success of ambiguity

resolution

Discussion50

Limitations


51

• What JLE can do is• conceptually representing conjoined NP as plural

(but not syntactically?)• What JLE cannot do is

• conceptually representing PDD as plural

52

Representation of plurality

Conclusion

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Dixon, R. M. W. (2005). A semantic approach to English grammar (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.Haskell, T. R., & MacDonald, M. C. (2003). Conflicting cues and competition in subject-verb agreement. Journal of

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anaphors. Language and Cognitive Processes, 17, 405–450. doi:10.1080/01690960143000272Kusanagi, K., Tamura, Y., & Fukuta, J. (2015). The Notional number attraction in English as a foreign language : A

self-paced reading study. Journal of the Japan Society for Speech Sciences, 16, 77–96.Lim, J. H., & Christianson, K. (2014). Second language sensitivity to agreement errors : Evidence from eye

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References53

Patson, N. D., & Ferreira, F. (2009). Conceptual plural information is used to guide early parsing decisions: Evidence from garden-path sentences with reciprocal verbs. Journal of Memory and Language, 60, 464–486. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2009.02.003

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Song, Y. (2015). L2 Processing of Plural Inflection in English. Language Learning, 65, 233–267. doi:10.1111/lang.12100Shibuya, M., & Wakabayashi, S. (2008). Why are L2 learners not always sensitive to subject-verb agreement?

EUROSLA Yearbook, 8, 235–258. doi:10.1075/eurosla.8.13shiTamura, Y., & Nishimura, Y. (2015). Word frequency effects and plurality in L2 word recognition: A preliminary study.

Paper presented at the 45th Annual Conference of Chubu English Language Education Society. Wakayama, Japan.

Tamura, Y., Fukuta, J., Nishimura, Y., & Kato, D. (in prep). L2 learners’ implicit and explicit knowledge about Subject-verb agreement and Coordinated NPs.

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References54

Conceptual Plurality in Japanese EFL Learners’ Online Sentence Processing: A Case of Garden-path Sentences with Reciprocal Verbs

contact info Yu TamuraGraduate School, Nagoya [email protected]

http://www.tamurayu.wordpress.com/

55

A. While the boy and the girl dated the performer played the piano on the stage.B. While the teenagers dated the performer played the piano on the stage.C. While the boy and the girl paid the performer played the piano on the stage.D. While the teenagers paid the performer played the piano on the stage.

No garden-path effect on A -> JLE can conceptually represent conjoined NP

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.tamurayu.wordpress.com

Model Df AIC BIC logLik deviance

(1|participant)+(1| item) 4 6932 6949 -3462 6924

conj + (1| participant)+(1| item) 5 6923 6944 -3457 6913

recip + (1| participant)+(1| item) 5 6933 6954 -3462 6923

conj + recip + (1| participant)+(1| item) 6 6924 6949 -3456 6912

conj*recip+ (1| participant)+(1| item) 7 6926 6955 -3456 6912

conj*recip+ (1+conj | participant)+(1| item) 9 6926 6964 -3454 6908

conj*recip+ (1+recip | participant)+(1| item) 9 6922 6960 -3452 6904

conj*recip+ (1+conj | participant)+(1+conj | item) 11 6930 6976 -3454 6908

conj*recip+ (1+recip| participant)+(1+recip| item) 11 6925 6971 -3451 6903

conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1| item) 12 6923 6973 -3449 6899

conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+recip| item) 14 6927 6986 -3449 6899

conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+conj| item) 14 6926 6985 -3449 6898

conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+conj+recip| item) 17 6931 7003 -3449 6897

56

Model Selection (Target V)









conj*recip+ (1+conj | participant)+(1+conj | item) 11 7231 7278 -3605 7209

conj*recip+ (1+recip| participant)+(1+recip| item) 11 7238 7285 -3608 7216

conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1| item) 12 7226 7277 -3601 7202conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+recip| item) 14 7227 7287 -3600 7199



57

Model Selection (Determiner)









conj*recip+ (1+conj | participant)+(1+conj | item) 11 7061 7108 -3520 7039conj*recip+ (1+recip| participant)+(1+recip| item) 11 7060 7108 -3519 7038

conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1| item) 12 7052 7103 -3514 7028

conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+recip| item) 14 7053 7113 -3513 7025



58

Model Selection (ObjectNoun)

Conjoined NP PDDthe producer and the editor the editorsthe artist and the painter the artiststhe doctor and the nurse the doctorsthe manager and the secretary the managersthe professor and the lecturer the professorsthe boy and the girl the teenagersthe actor and the actress the actorsthe French and the Spanish the Europeansthe waiter and the waitress the waitersthe wife and the husband the loversthe mayor and the councilor the politiciansthe mother and father the parentsthe writer and the novelist the writersthe runner and the cyclist the athletesthe singer and the guitarist the musiciansthe king and the queen the leadersthe novelist and the poet the writersthe musician and the comedian the entertainersthe coach and the trainer the coachesthe engineer and the mechanic the enginerrs

59

The List of Conjoined NP and PDD