书面韵律边界与语境对歧义句歧义消解的影响

The Influence of Punctuations and the Context in Ambiguity Resolution

本研究采用眼动记录的方法,考察了被试在理解层次分隔歧义句时,作为书面韵律边界的逗号所起到的作用,以及逗号与语境信息间的交互作用。实验通过操纵逗号的位置,变化歧义句的句义;通过操纵语境内容,变化语境偏向与逗号解歧方向的一致性。结果发现,逗号做为书面的韵律信息促进了句子的加工。当有书面韵律边界为句子解歧时,被试更依赖于韵律边界。语境信息与书面韵律边界的交互作用发生于句子加工晚期。

A number of studies have been conducted to investigate neural dynamics of prosodic processing in spoken language comprehension. However,little was known to what extent prosodic information constrained the neuro-cognitive processes of written language processing.The present research investigated the effects of Chinese punctuations on the comprehension of ambiguous sentences caused by different layers,and the interaction between punctuations and the context,by using eye movement recordings.The eye movements recording instrument was Model 504 produced by ASL.（American Science Laboratory）.And the experiment used a self-paced,lineby -line,reading paradigm,in which the participants read sentences by pressing a key each time they wanted a new one to appear.Some of the sentences followed by a question which required the participant to judge whether the two sentences had the same meaning.Two factors in the experiment were controlled;the meaning biased by commas and the context,and the meaning biased by commas having three levels and the context having two levels.The experiment varied the meaning of the ambiguous sentences according to the location of the comma,and the consistency between the context and the meaning explained by the comma varied according to the content of the context.So there were 6 conditions.The experiment materials were 4 sets,each contained 18 sentences belonged to all of 6 conditions, but did not have the same ambiguous structure.4 participants took part in each set.For the purpose of the experiment,the study involved two regions of interests,the context before the first comma and the content after the first comma.The analysis indicators were first fixation duration,gaze duration and total fixation duration.According to the analysis of fixation time on the two lookzones,it was found that in different context,the ambiguous sentences disambiguated by the comma had a different pattern in the first fixation duration, gaze duration and total fixation duration.The main effects of the comma was barely significant（p.1）,the interaction between the direction commas biased and the context was extremely significant（p.001）.In addition,the context effects were not found at the first fixation time and in the gaze duration,as it was exhibited by the total fixation duration in the context.The main effects of the context was significant（p.05）,the interaction between the meaning commas biased and the context was extremely significant（p.001）. The so-called context effects were not found at the early stage of ambiguous word meaning access.Our data were compatible with the implicit prosody hypothesis.These findings suggest that the commas in Chinese sentences can promote the processing of reading.When there is a comma,the subjects will more rely on the punctuations for understanding.The interaction between the punctuations and the context took place on the late stage of understanding.