The Syntax-Prosody Interface: Data from a Double PP Construction

Abstract

It is a standard finding that speakers reliably produce prosodic cues (pitch excursion, change in speech rate and pauses) to clause boundaries and listeners use these cues in parsing sentences. However, considerable uncertainty remains regarding whether the same applies to syntactic phrase boundaries. A long series of studies in the parsing literature on ambiguous PP attachment constructions, such as Susan hit the man with the umbrella, has yielded mixed results. This study investigates the prosody-syntax interface in the processing of a double PP construction in Hebrew. Selection restrictions force the first prepositional phrase (PP1) to attach to the immediately preceding NP on the syntactic tree, but attachment of the second one (PP2) is ambiguous: it can attach maximally high to VP (as an argument of described) or maximally low to the NP inside PP1 (modifying marriage). PP2 was either short or long (with a modifier added to the short version, as indicated in parentheses).

Dana _VP[ te’ara         ‘et      _NP[ ha-kšayim      _PP1[ be-nisu’e-ha      _PP2[ la-šadran (hamefursam)

Dana       described   ACC        the-difficulties       in-marriage-her      to the-broadcaster (famous)

This double PP construction exhibits a sharper structural contrast (a greater number of syntactic edges) between the two potential attachment sites than the long-studied single-PP construction: there is a greater discontinuity in the syntactic tree for the high attachment analysis, which could encourage a stronger prosodic break before the ambiguous PP, yielding more reliable results than for the single-PP construction. A combined production-comprehension experiment was conducted to examine the relationship between preferred interpretation and preferred prosodic phrasing in reading aloud. The production results indicated more prosodic boundaries before long PP2s than before short PP2s. The comprehension data showed a preference for high PP2-attachment in the case of a prosodic boundary before PP2, regardless of PP2 length. These findings suggest that attachee-length affects prosodic phrasing, and prosodic phrasing affects attachment preference. This study provides performance data supporting the interplay of phrase lengths with structure-sensitivity as posited in the linguistics literature on the syntax–prosody interface, and supports the claim that readers are sensitive to the structural implications of the prosody they project onto sentences.