The lexical nature of syntactic ambiguity resolution
Abstract
Ambiguity resolution is a central problem in language comprehension. Lexical and syntactic ambiguities are standardly assumed to involve different types of knowledge representations and be resolved by different mechanisms. An alternative account is provided in which both types of ambiguity derive from aspects of lexical representation and are resolved by the same processing mechanisms. Reinterpreting syntactic ambiguity resolution as a form of lexical ambiguity resolution obviates the need for special parsing principles to account for syntactic interpretation preferences, reconciles a number of apparently conflicting results concerning the roles of lexical and contextual information in sentence processing, explains differences among ambiguities in terms of ease of resolution, and provides a more unified account of language comprehension than was previously available.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The ambiguity in sentences like 'The plane left for...' is strongly constrained by the frequency with which the ambiguous verb occurs in transitive and passive structures.
“Thus, the ambiguityis stronglyconstrained bythe frequencywith which the ambiguous verb occurs in transitive and passive structures, of which reduced relative clauses are a special type (MacDonald, 1994; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994; Trueswell, 1996).”
From FREQUENCY EFFECTS IN LANGUAGE PROCESSING: A Review with Implications for Theories of Implicit and Explicit Language Acquisition (2002) · cites this paper as MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994
Cites
Fodor, J. A. (1983) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/4737.001.0001 · Cited by 7,734 · see citing works
On the time relations of mental processes: An examination of systems of processes in cascade.
McClelland, J. L. (1979) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.86.4.287 · Cited by 1,298 · see citing works
Probabilistic constraints and syntactic ambiguity resolution
MacDonald, M. C. (1994) · Language and Cognitive Processes · doi:10.1080/01690969408402115 · Cited by 379 · see citing works
Self-citationLearning and applying contextual constraints in sentence comprehension
St. John, M. F., & McClelland, J. L. (1990) · Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1016/0004-3702(90)90008-n · Cited by 322 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Integration of Visual and Linguistic Information in Spoken Language Comprehension
Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., Eberhard, K. M., & Sedivy, J. C. (1995) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.7777863 · Cited by 2,929 · see citing works
Understanding normal and impaired word reading: Computational principles in quasi-regular domains.
Plaut, D. C., McClelland, J. L., Seidenberg, M. S., & Patterson, K. (1996) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.103.1.56 · Cited by 2,698 · see citing works
Self-citationToward a mechanistic psychology of dialogue.
Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2004) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x04000056 · Cited by 2,678 · see citing works
Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies
Gibson, E. (1998) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(98)00034-1 · Cited by 2,537 · see citing works
Towards a neural basis of auditory sentence processing
Friederici, A. D. (2002) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/s1364-6613(00)01839-8 · Cited by 2,231 · see citing works
Ellis, N. C. (2002) · Studies in Second Language Acquisition · doi:10.1017/s0272263102002024 · Cited by 2,230 · see citing works
On Broca, brain, and binding: A new framework
Hagoort, P. (2005) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.004 · Cited by 1,411 · see citing works
The P600 as an index of syntactic integration difficulty
Kaan, E., Harris, A., Gibson, E., & Holcomb, P. (2000) · Language and Cognitive Processes · doi:10.1080/016909600386084 · Cited by 993 · see citing works
Chang, F., Dell, G. S., & Bock, K. (2006) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.113.2.234 · Cited by 984 · see citing works
More than words: Frequency effects for multi-word phrases
Arnon, I., & Snider, N. (2010) · Journal of Memory and Language · doi:10.1016/j.jml.2009.09.005 · Cited by 791 · see citing works
Cognitive control and parsing: Reexamining the role of Broca’s area in sentence comprehension
Novick, J. M., Trueswell, J. C., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2005) · Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience · doi:10.3758/cabn.5.3.263 · Cited by 682 · see citing works
The Declarative/Procedural Model of Lexicon and Grammar
Ullman, M. T. (2001) · Journal of Psycholinguistic Research · doi:10.1023/a:1005204207369 · Cited by 508 · see citing works
Multimodal Language Processing in Human Communication
Holler, J., & Levinson, S. C. (2019) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2019.05.006 · Cited by 441 · see citing works
Four central questions about prediction in language processing
Huettig, F. (2015) · Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2015.02.014 · Cited by 405 · see citing works
Cross-Linguistic Variation and Efficiency
Hawkins, J. A. (2014) · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199664993.001.0001 · Cited by 405 · see citing works
Probabilistic constraints and syntactic ambiguity resolution
MacDonald, M. C. (1994) · Language and Cognitive Processes · doi:10.1080/01690969408402115 · Cited by 379 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Cortical Organization of Syntax
Matchin, W., & Hickok, G. (2020) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhz180 · Cited by 370 · see citing works
Dissociating language and thought in large language models
Mahowald, K., Ivanova, A. A., Blank, I. A., Kanwisher, N., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Fedorenko, E. (2024) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2024.01.011 · Cited by 345 · see citing works
Effects of syntactic structure and propositional number on patterns of regional cerebral blood flow
Caplan, D., Alpert, N., & Waters, G. (1998) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/089892998562843 · Cited by 327 · see citing works
Information retrieval and text mining technologies for chemistry
Krallinger, M., Rabal, O., Lourenço, A., Oyarzabal, J., & Valencia, A. (2017) · Chemical Reviews · doi:10.1021/acs.chemrev.6b00851 · Cited by 281 · see citing works
January, D., Trueswell, J. C., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2009) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/jocn.2008.21179 · Cited by 236 · see citing works
fMRI reveals language-specific predictive coding during naturalistic sentence comprehension
Shain, C., Blank, I. A., van Schijndel, M., Schuler, W., & Fedorenko, E. (2020) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107307 · Cited by 215 · see citing works
Cognitive Gerontology and Attentional Inhibition: A Reply to Burke and McDowd
Zacks, R., & Hasher, L. (1997) · The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences · doi:10.1093/geronb/52b.6.p274 · Cited by 220 · see citing works
Kidd, E., Brandt, S., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2007) · Language and Cognitive Processes · doi:10.1080/01690960601155284 · Cited by 196 · see citing works
Lack of selectivity for syntax relative to word meanings throughout the language network
Fedorenko, E., Blank, I. A., Siegelman, M., & Mineroff, Z. (2020) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104348 · Cited by 170 · see citing works
MEMORY-BASED LANGUAGE PROCESSING: Psycholinguistic Research in the 1990s
McKoon, G., & Ratcliff, R. (1998) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.49.1.25 · Cited by 179 · see citing works
The P3b and P600(s): Positive contributions to language comprehension
Leckey, M., & Federmeier, K. D. (2020) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/psyp.13351 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
The time course of anticipatory constraint integration
Kukona, A., Fang, S.-Y., Aicher, K. A., Chen, H., & Magnuson, J. S. (2011) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2010.12.002 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
“…information impacts a listener's interpretation is a point of serious contention among theories of sentence processing (e.g., Frazier & Fodor, 1978; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994), and has been the focus of considerable research in psycholinguistics (e.g., Duffy, Morris, & Rayner,…”
BackgroundComprehension skill and word‐to‐text integration processes
Perfetti, C., Yang, C., & Schmalhofer, F. (2008) · Applied Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1002/acp.1419 · Cited by 115 · see citing works
Kidd, E., & Bavin, E. L. (2002) · Journal of Psycholinguistic Research · doi:10.1023/a:1021265021141 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
Unifying structural priming effects on syntactic choices and timing of sentence generation
Segaert, K., Wheeldon, L., & Hagoort, P. (2016) · Journal of Memory and Language · doi:10.1016/j.jml.2016.03.011 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Ambiguity, Accessibility, and a Division of Labor for Communicative Success
Ferreira, V. S. (2008) · Psychology of Learning and Motivation · doi:10.1016/s0079-7421(08)00006-6 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Interference between conversation and a concurrent visuomotor task.
Boiteau, T. W., Malone, P. S., Peters, S. A., & Almor, A. (2014) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/a0031858 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Lampinen, A. (2024) · Computational Linguistics · doi:10.1162/coli_a_00525 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Rossi, E., Diaz, M., Kroll, J. F., & Dussias, P. E. (2017) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00342 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
- Authors
- MacDonald, M. C., Pearlmutter, N. J., & Seidenberg, M. S.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Review
- Published
- 1994
- Volume
- 101
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 676-703
- ISSN
- 0033-295X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1471
- OpenAlex
- W2028041302
- Cited by
- 2,259
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 68 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 44 · 2023: 52 · 2022: 95 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 150 · 2018: 51 · 2017: 88 · 2016: 85 · 2015: 87 · 2014: 119 · 2013: 94 · 2012: 57
- FWCI
- 16.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Review (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (R01AG010109, AG-10109)
- National Institute of Mental Health (1-F32-MH10592-01, F32MH010592, MH-47566, P01MH047566)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Keywords
- syntactic ambiguity resolution, lexical ambiguity resolution, lexical ambiguity, sentence processing, language comprehension, lexical representation, syntactic analysis, contextual information
- MeSH terms
- Cognition, Cues, Discrimination Learning, Humans, Models, Psychological, Speech Perception, Vocabulary
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
