Verbal effect on the processing of complement coercion: Distinguishing between aspectual verbs and psych verbs

Abstract

This study examined whether entity-denoting complements of psych verbs and aspectual verbs engender identical processing profiles. Previous literature has suggested that both verb types require an event-denoting complement and “coerce” an underspecified event sense when combined with an entity-denoting complement. The present study, including three norming tests and a self-paced reading experiment, recorded reading times of Mandarin Chinese speakers on entity complements preceded by three types of verbs: aspectual verbs, which require an eventive complement; psych verbs, which are subject to debate recently on their complement constraints; and control verbs, which select an entity complement, as represented in zuòjiā kāishǐ/xiǎngshòu/zhuànxiě zhè-běn xiǎoshuō “The author started/enjoyed/ wrote the novel.” It is found that the entity complements following aspectual verbs elicited longer reading times than those following psych and control verbs, particularly at the two words immediately after the complement. The results confirm the processing cost yielded by complement coercion, and more importantly, contribute evidence to constrain the mechanism of complement coercion to aspectual verbs only.