Sentential position of VN combination modulates the rhythmic pattern effect during Chinese sentence reading: Evidence from eye movements.

Though previous research has examined how implicit meter can facilitate the processing of stress-timed languages, syllable-timed languages, such as Chinese, remain under studied. Past research has shown that among verb-noun combinations in Chinese, the processing of [2 + 2] (two disyllabic words) combination rhythmic pattern is easier than that of [2 + 1] (a disyllabic word and a monosyllabic word) pattern, though it is unclear whether this effect is modulated by the sentential position of the verb-noun combination. The present study uses eye-tracking to examine the influence of position on rhythmic pattern during silent reading. In Experiment 1, participants read sentences with [2 + 1] versus [2 + 2] VN phrases embedded in different sentential positions. Results show that the fixation duration of [2 + 1] VN phrases is significantly longer than that of [2 + 2] and that the fixation duration of VN phrases is shorter at the sentence-middle position than it is at the sentence-final position, suggesting that the rhythmic pattern effect at the sentence-middle position exhibits a reduced magnitude compared to the sentence-final position. In Experiment 2, participants read sentences with either mono- or disyllabic words after the VN phrases to further explore whether the reduction of the rhythmic pattern effect is related to the number of succeeding syllables. Results show that while the fixation duration of the [2 + 1] VN pattern is significantly longer than that of the [2 + 2] pattern, there is no significant difference between the monosyllabic versus the disyllabic conditions, nor is there a significant interaction between rhythmic pattern and syllable length post VN phrases, thus ruling out the rhythmic effect from succeeding context. Together, these patterns suggest that the reduction of the rhythmic pattern effect is caused by position rather than number of syllables after phrases.