Processing Ambiguous Relative Clause Attachment
Alan Juffs, Guillermo A. Rodríguez · 2014
This chapter will address a structure that has been the focus of a large volume of processing research. Recall from chapter 1 that one question regarding processing was whether parsing principles exist that are independent of the grammar and that might vary crosslinguistically. Recall also from chapter 1 that sentences such as ‘the spy saw the secret agent with binoculars’ are globally ambiguous: either ‘the spy’ or ‘the secret agent’ could have been holding the binoculars. One proposal for a parsing principle that is quite separate from the grammar involves a construction that is classified as an adjunct (following Frazier and Clifton’s [1996] Construal Model). The principle is designed to account for crosslinguistic differences in preferences in interpretation of sentences such as (212): (212) The reporter interviewed the daughter of the colonel who had an accident.