TY - JOUR
T1 - How do people produce ungrammatical utterances?
AU - Ivanova, Iva
AU - Pickering, Martin J.
AU - McLean, Janet F.
AU - Costa, Albert
AU - Branigan, Holly P.
PY - 2012/10
Y1 - 2012/10
N2 - We investigate whether people might come to produce utterances that they regard as ungrammatical by examining the production of ungrammatical verb-construction combinations (e.g., The dancer donates the soldier the apple) after exposure to both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. We contrast two accounts of how such production might take place: an abstract structural persistence account, according to which it is caused by increased activation of an abstract structural rule; and a lexically-driven persistence account, according to which it requires previous exposure to the same (ungrammatical) verb-construction combination. In four structural priming experiments, we found that sentences with ungrammatical verb-construction combinations were produced only after exposure to similar ungrammatical exemplars containing the same verb, but not after such sentences with a different verb, or grammatical sentences with the same construction. These results indicate that people can produce sentences with ungrammatical verb-construction combinations after brief exposure to related sentences, and provide support for the lexically-driven persistence account of such production.
AB - We investigate whether people might come to produce utterances that they regard as ungrammatical by examining the production of ungrammatical verb-construction combinations (e.g., The dancer donates the soldier the apple) after exposure to both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. We contrast two accounts of how such production might take place: an abstract structural persistence account, according to which it is caused by increased activation of an abstract structural rule; and a lexically-driven persistence account, according to which it requires previous exposure to the same (ungrammatical) verb-construction combination. In four structural priming experiments, we found that sentences with ungrammatical verb-construction combinations were produced only after exposure to similar ungrammatical exemplars containing the same verb, but not after such sentences with a different verb, or grammatical sentences with the same construction. These results indicate that people can produce sentences with ungrammatical verb-construction combinations after brief exposure to related sentences, and provide support for the lexically-driven persistence account of such production.
U2 - 10.1016/j.jml.2012.06.003
DO - 10.1016/j.jml.2012.06.003
M3 - Article
VL - 67
SP - 355
EP - 370
JO - Journal of Memory and Language
JF - Journal of Memory and Language
SN - 0749-596X
IS - 3
ER -