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http://dx.doi.org/10.13064/KSSS.2014.6.2.153

Prosody and comprehension of ambiguous dative NPs in Korean  

Kang, Soyoung (Hongik University)
Publication Information
Phonetics and Speech Sciences / v.6, no.2, 2014 , pp. 153-161 More about this Journal
Abstract
The current study reports the results from a cross-modal naming experiment investigating the effects of a prosodic boundary location on the comprehension of ambiguous dative NPs in Korean (Yeongmi-ka Ceonghi-eykey norae-rul pwulecwu-n pwuin-ul ${\cdots}$). The underlined dative NP, Ceonghi-eykey, can temporarily be attached to the embedded rel-marked verb, pwulecwu-n ('sing-rel') or to the matrix verb to appear later. Participants heard sentence fragments manipulated for the location of Intonation Phrase boundary (the biggest prosodic boundary in the model of Seoul Korean) and right after that, had to name visually presented naming targets, which resolve the ambiguity of dative NPs. The prosodic manipulation did not result in difference in naming time, suggesting that the location of a prosodic boundary failed to influence the way Korean listeners interpreted ambiguous dative NPs. Possible reasons for the null effect were discussed.
Keywords
syntactic ambiguity; Korean dative NPs; prosodic boundary; a cross-modal naming task;
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