Conceptual Plurality in Japanese EFL Learners' Online Sentence Processing: A Case of Garden-path Sentences with Reciprocal Verbs /JASELE2015

Tamura, et al. (2015). Conceptual Plurality in Japanese EFL Learners' Online Sentence Processing: A Case of Garden-path Sentences with Reciprocal Verbs. The 41st Annual Conference of the Japan Society of English Language Education, Kumamoto, Japan.

Transcript

1. Conceptual Plurality in Japanese EFL Learners’ Online Sentence Processing: A Case of Garden-path Sentences with Reciprocal Verbs August 23, 2015 41st JASELE Kumamoto Gakuen University
2. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 2
3. • 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 Background 3 Conceptual Plurality
4. • 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. 4 Introduction Reciprocal verbs
5. • Requires readers reanalysis As the parents left their child played the guitar nicely. 5 Introduction Garden-path sentences
6. • Requires readers reanalysis As the parents left their child played the guitar nicely. [As the parents left,] their child played the guitar nicely. 6 Introduction Garden-path sentences NP ?? NP V DO V V DO Subjective NP intransitive
7. 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 7 Introduction
8. 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. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 9
10. • 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) Background 10 Conceptual Plurality
11. • 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? 11 Introduction Conceptual Plurality
12. • 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? 12 Introduction Conceptual Plurality
13. 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. 13 Introduction Conceptual Plurality
14. • 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 14 Introduction Conceptual Plurality
15. • 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) 15 Introduction Previous L1 Research
16. • 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) Background 16 Acquisition of plurality
17. • 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 Background 17 Acquisition of plurality
18. • 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 difference JLE cannot interpret conjoined NP as plural in online sentence processing? Background 18 Acquisition of plurality
19. • 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) Background 19 Limitation of anomaly detection
20. • 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? Background 20 Motivation of the study
21. • 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. Background 21 Hypothesis
22. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 22
23. • 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 Study 23 Participants Age TOEIC Score N M SD M SD Participants 32 24.77 5.34 824.22 113.12
24. • Twenty test items in four conditions 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. The Present Study 24 Stimuli Conj/recip PDD/recip Conj/OT PDD/OT
25. • 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 Study 25 Stimuli
26. • Self-paced reading task on PC • Moving window and word by word reading The Present Study 26 Experiment _____ __ __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ____ While __ __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ____ ____ the __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ____ ____ __ boy __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ___ ____ __ boy __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ___ ____ ___ __ ___ _____ __ _____ stage. ___ ____ __ ___ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ࣍΁
27. • Target regions 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. The Present Study 27 Experiment
28. • Outliers 1. 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 removed 4. Overall, 4.5% of all the responses were removed The Present Study 28 Analysis
29. • 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 Study 29 Analysis
30. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 30
31. 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. 32 Reading Time Results
33. 33 Reading Time Results
34. 34 Reading Time Results
35. • 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 Results 35
36. • Target V • Random effects (intercepts) • Fixed effects Model Selection Results 36 Variance SD participant 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
37. • 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 Results 37
38. • Determiner (one word after the Target V) • Random effects (intercepts & slope) •Fixed effects Model Selection Results 38 Variance SD participant (intercept) 0.03 0.17 conj 0.24 0.15 recip 0.22 0.14 item (intercept) > 0.01 0.05 conj 0.02 0.14 Residual 0.140 0.37 Estimate SE t p intercepts 6.22 0.06 98.97 p < .001 recip -0.06 0.05 -1.27 .21 conj -0.05 0.07 -0.82 .41 recip:conj -0.07 0.05 -1.37 .17
39. • 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 Results 39
40. •Object Noun (two words after the Target V) • Random effects (intercepts & slope) •Fixed effects Model Selection Results 40 Variance SD participant (intercept) 0.04 0.19 conj 0.02 0.13 recip 0.02 0.13 item (intercept) 0.01 0.12 Residual 0.13 0.37 Estimate SE t p intercepts 6.28 0.09 69.31 p < .001 recip -0.04 0.04 -0.84 .21 conj -0.02 0.04 -0.42 .41 recip:conj -0.12 0.05 -2.21 0.03
41. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 41
42. • 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) Discussion 42 RT differences
43. • Conjoined NP and PDD were processed differently • The participants succeeded in assigning reciprocality to reciprocal verbs only when the subject was conjoined Discussion 43 Processing of Plurals
44. • Subject NP: conjoined • Verb: optionally transitive -> The participants still looked for object noun Discussion 44 Processing of Plurals
45. Fast RT in conjoined NP with reciprocal verbs were not only because of conjoined NP but also reciprocal verbs Discussion 45 Processing of Plurals
46. • Conjoined NP • Plural definite description Discussion 46 Processing of Plurals ※It is possible that the participants failed to process plural marker -s
47. Discussion 47 Processing of Plurals Structure 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 conceptually sensitive
48. • 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) Discussion 48 Processing of Plurals
49. • 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) Discussion 49 Future Research
50. • 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 Discussion 50 Limitations
51. Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion • Conclusion 51
52. • 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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55. Conceptual Plurality in Japanese EFL Learners’ Online Sentence Processing: A Case of Garden-path Sentences with Reciprocal Verbs contact info Yu Tamura Graduate School, Nagoya University yutamura@nagoya-u.jp 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
56. 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)
57. Model Df AIC BIC logLik deviance (1|participant)+(1| item) 4 7252 7270 -3622 7244 conj + (1| participant)+(1| item) 5 7251 7273 -3621 7241 recip + (1| participant)+(1| item) 5 7250 7272 -3620 7240 conj + recip + (1| participant)+(1| item) 6 7249 7275 -3619 7237 conj*recip+ (1| participant)+(1| item) 7 7250 7280 -3618 7236 conj*recip+ (1+conj | participant)+(1| item) 9 7238 7277 -3610 7220 conj*recip+ (1+recip | participant)+(1| item) 9 7237 7276 -3609 7219 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 7202 conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+recip| item) 14 7227 7287 -3600 7199 conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+conj| item) 14 7218 7278 -3595 7190 conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+conj+recip| item) 17 7219 7292 -3593 7185 57 Model Selection (Determiner)
58. Model Df AIC BIC logLik deviance (1|participant)+(1| item) 4 7065 7082 -3528 7057 conj + (1| participant)+(1| item) 5 7066 7087 -3528 7056 recip + (1| participant)+(1| item) 5 7066 7087 -3528 7056 conj + recip + (1| participant)+(1| item) 6 7067 7093 -3527 7055 conj*recip+ (1| participant)+(1| item) 7 7063 7093 -3525 7049 conj*recip+ (1+conj | participant)+(1| item) 9 7061 7100 -3522 7043 conj*recip+ (1+recip | participant)+(1| item) 9 7059 7097 -3520 7041 conj*recip+ (1+conj | participant)+(1+conj | item) 11 7061 7108 -3520 7039 conj*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 conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+conj| item) 14 7052 7112 -3512 7024 conj*recip+ (1+conj+recip| participant)+(1+conj+recip| item) 17 7055 7127 -3510 7021 58 Model Selection (ObjectNoun)
59. Conjoined NP PDD the producer and the editor the editors the artist and the painter the artists the doctor and the nurse the doctors the manager and the secretary the managers the professor and the lecturer the professors the boy and the girl the teenagers the actor and the actress the actors the French and the Spanish the Europeans the waiter and the waitress the waiters the wife and the husband the lovers the mayor and the councilor the politicians the mother and father the parents the writer and the novelist the writers the runner and the cyclist the athletes the singer and the guitarist the musicians the king and the queen the leaders the novelist and the poet the writers the musician and the comedian the entertainers the coach and the trainer the coaches the engineer and the mechanic the enginerrs 59 The List of Conjoined NP and PDD