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Understanding Sentence Structure and Meaning
Team up with a partner for this activity.
Step 1
Each of you should generate a list of 10 sentences that contain a potential temporary ambiguity, using a variety of syntactic structures. Drawing on your knowledge of the various sources of disambiguating information, write one half of them so that they will likely cause very severe garden path effects, and the other half so that they will likely cause only minimal disruption. Feel free to embed your sentences in a brief context or story. Try to stack the deck against your “hard” sentences so that multiple variables increase the likelihood that the ambiguous structure will be misinterpreted. Similarly, make sure that multiple factors support the correct reading of the “easy” sentences. Be sure to consider: thematic relations, plausibility in the story context, the referential context, and the preferred syntactic frames of verbs. To help you along, here is a list of some verbs with information about their syntactic preferences.
Verbs biased for a transitive frame (with a direct object)
- kick
- watch
- chase
- read
- pass
- push
- copy
Verbs biased for an intransitive frame (with no direct object)
- rush
- continue
- walk
- hurry
- stand
- surrender
- refuse
Verbs biased for a direct object (NP) complement:
- print
- accept
- advocate
- propose
- protest
- forget
- repeat
Verbs biased for a sentential complement
- worry
- realize
- pretend
- decide
- conclude
- suppose
Step 2
When you have created your sentences, swap sheets with you activity partner. Each of you should now act as “editor,” identifying the difficult-to-process sentences. How accurately do your editing instincts line up with the biasing variables that your partner introduced into these sentences?