Processing coordinate structures with ellipsis in Brazilian Portuguese

Authors

  • Andressa Christine Oliveira da Silva Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG,
  • Aline Alves Fonseca Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG,
  • Laís Lagreca de Carvalho Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG,

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7726.2018.1.28689

Keywords:

Ellipsis, Coordinate clauses, Sentence processing, Psycholinguistics, Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This paper investigates the sentence processing of two types of coordinate sentences in Brazilian Portuguese: (1) coordinate structure with conjoined objects (nongapping), like Alice baked cakes for her friends and cookies for her cousin; and (2) coordinate structure with VP ellipsis (gapping), like Alice baked cakes for friends and Camila for her cousin. Three experiments were carried out, a written questionnaire in which subjects ranked their preferences for completing the main sentence, such as in "Alice baked cakes for her friends and ..."; and two self-paced reading tasks in which we measured the reaction time to read the DP following the conjunction "and" and the PP that follows the DP and undoes a possible ambiguity. This research is based on the works of Carlson (2001, 2002), who investigated the processing of these structures in American English. The results of the three experiments indicate that a simpler syntactic structure (the nongapping) is not always the easiest input for the parser to process.

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Author Biographies

Andressa Christine Oliveira da Silva, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG,

Doutoranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora

Aline Alves Fonseca, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG,

Professora Adjunta do Departamento de Letras da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora

Laís Lagreca de Carvalho, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG,

Mestranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora

References

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Published

2018-06-05

How to Cite

da Silva, A. C. O., Fonseca, A. A., & de Carvalho, L. L. (2018). Processing coordinate structures with ellipsis in Brazilian Portuguese. Letras De Hoje, 53(1), 130–139. https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7726.2018.1.28689

Issue

Vol. 53 No. 1 (2018): Language in a Psycho/Neurolinguistic and Cognitive Neuroscience perspective

Section

Linguagem na perspectiva da Psico/Neurolinguística e da Neurociência Cognitiva

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