Relative prosodic boundary strength and prior bias in disambiguation
Michael Wagner, Serena Crivellaro · 2010
Previous research found that the relative rather than absolute size of prosodic boundaries is crucial in disambiguating attachment ambiguities [1,2].Furthermore, relative categorical differences matter whereas merely quantitative ones do not [1].This paper presents further evidence that relative boundary strength is indeed crucial, but, contrary to earlier findings, gradient quantitative differences affect parsing decisions in gradient ways.Furthermore, varying the plausibility of a given reading in a given context shifts the perceptual boundaries between different phrasings such that quantitatively stronger prosodic cues are necessary to counter-act a prior bias against it.