Prepositional Phrase Attachment Global Ambiguity Resolution in Semantically Biased and Neutral Conditions by L2 Learners

Abstract

This study investigated the prepositional phrase attachment preferences of Persian speaking second language learnersof English in dealing with globally ambiguous sentences. Results are reported from 34 participants across twoproficiency levels who took part in an online reading task and an offline reading task. In both tasks, the preferenceswere examined in biased and neutral conditions; in the former the verb was semantically biased towards the DPinside the PP (e.g. Peter killed the man with a gun) and in the latter condition there was no bias (e.g. Peter met theman with a gun). The findings showed that in both online and offline reading tasks participants resolved theambiguity by attaching the ambiguous DP to the verb, being influenced by the semantic relationship between the two,but in the neutral condition, the preferences were almost equal for both interpretations. The proficiency level did notinfluence preferences except for a slight interaction effect in the offline reading task. The findings indicate that L2learners of different proficiency levels rely on semantics rather than syntax in processing globally ambiguoussentences. The findings of this study in the neutral condition, are in line with the unrestricted race model. However,this model and the constraint-based theories fail to provide a proper explanation for the biased and neutral conditionsrespectively. It is suggested that discrepancy between the assumptions of the constraint-based theories and theunrestricted race model seems to be due to ignoring the role of semantic relationship between phrases in sentencesused for elicitation of parsing preferences; a factor that needs to be taken into account in future studies.