Staub Adrian, Clifton Charles, Frazier Lyn
J Mem Lang. 2006 Apr;54(3):389-406. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2005.12.002.
Two eye movement experiments explored the roles of verbal subcategorization possibilities and transitivity biases in the processing of heavy NP shift sentences in which the verb's direct object appears to the right of a post-verbal phrase. In Experiment 1, participants read sentences in which a prepositional phrase immediately followed the verb, which was either obligatorily transitive or had a high transitivity bias (e.g., Jack praised/watched from the stands his daughter's attempt to shoot a basket). Experiment 2 compared unshifted sentences to sentences in which an adverb intervened between the verb and its object, and obligatorily transitive verbs to optionally transitive verbs with widely varying transitivity biases. In both experiments, evidence of processing difficulty appeared on the material that intervened between the verb and its object when the verb was obligatorily transitive, and on the shifted direct object when the verb was optionally transitive, regardless of transitivity bias. We conclude that the parser adopts the heavy NP shift analysis only when it is forced to by the grammar, which we interpret in terms of a preference for immediate incremental interpretation.
两项眼动实验探究了动词次范畴化可能性和及物性偏向在重名词短语移位句（heavy NP shift sentences）处理过程中的作用，在这类句子中动词的直接宾语出现在动词后短语的右侧。在实验1中，参与者阅读的句子中，介词短语紧跟在动词之后，该动词要么是强制性及物动词，要么具有较高的及物性偏向（例如，杰克在看台上表扬/观看了他女儿投篮的尝试）。实验2将未移位的句子与动词和其宾语之间插入了副词的句子进行了比较，还将强制性及物动词与及物性偏向差异很大的非强制性及物动词进行了比较。在这两项实验中，当动词是强制性及物动词时，处理困难的证据出现在动词与其宾语之间的成分上；当动词是非强制性及物动词时，处理困难的证据出现在移位的直接宾语上，而与及物性偏向无关。我们得出结论，只有在语法迫使的情况下，句法分析器才会采用重名词短语移位分析，我们将其解释为对即时增量解释的偏好。
