O papel da prosódia no processamento sintático de sentenças garden-path

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of intonational phrase boundaries on the restriction of the syntactic processing of sentences which have temporary structural ambiguities, known in psycholinguistic literature as Garden Path sentences. The working hypothesis is that native listeners of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) uses prosodic cues, more specifically, phonological phrase boundary cues to facilitate the syntactic processing of these sentences. As for the theoretical approach, we assume the model proposed by Corrêa (2006, 2009) that integrates linguistic theory, specifically the Minimalist Program (CHOMSKY, 1995, 1999) with models of language processing as the Phonological Bootstrapping (MORGAN & DEMUTH, 1996; CHRISTOPHE et al., 1997). We also adopt the conception of interface between the prosodic and syntactic levels proposed by the Prosodic Phonology (Nespor & Vogel, 1986). In order to investigate the role of prosodic cues in the syntactic ambiguity resolution, we developed an experimental activity, based on Gayle Dede experiments (2010). BP native listeners were exposed to pairs of lexically identical sentences but with different prosodic contours. In the sentences (a) intransitive subordinate verbs were followed by plausible direct objects as in While the mother woke up the children prepared the breakfast. In the sentences (b) intransitive subordinate verbs were paired with implausible direct objects as in While the mother walked the children prepared the breakfast. Both sentences were unregistered in two prosodic conditions in which the critical segment (the children) were produced as an direct object of the first verb (P2 condition) or as the subject of the second verb object (P1 condition).The results support our hypothesis that prosodic cues facilitate Garden Path sentence syntactic processing by BP native speakers.