306 • CHAPTER 11 Language
Notice what is happening in these sentences. The syntax-based principle of late
closure leads the reader astray, but then a correction is made after the real meaning
of the sentence becomes clear. In other words, syntax (structure) controls things and
then, if necessary, semantics (meaning) jumps in to rearrange the parsing. We will now
describe an approach to parsing that was proposed to account for evidence indicating
that semantics doesn’t just “jump in” to rearrange confusing parsing. This approach
proposes that all information, both syntactic and semantic, is taken into account simul-
taneously as we read or listen to a sentence, so any corrections that need to occur
take place as the sentence is unfolding (Altmann, 1998; Altmann & Steedman, 1988;
MacDonald et al., 1994). This idea is called the interactionist approach to parsing.THE INTERACTIONIST APPROACH TO PARSING
The crucial question in comparing the syntax-fi rst approach and the interactionist
approach is not whether semantics is involved, but when semantics comes into play.
Is semantics activated only after syntax has determined the initial parsing (syntax-fi rst
approach), or does semantics come into play as a sentence is being read (interactionist
approach)? One way to demonstrate an early role for semantics is to show how parsing
can be infl uenced by the meaning of words in a sentence.Sentence Understanding Infl uenced by the Meanings of Words We will look at some
sentences that have the same structure but that, depending on the meanings of the words,
can either be ambiguous or not ambiguous. Consider, for example, the following sentence:The spy saw the man with the binoculars.
This sentence has two meanings, which represent different relationships between the
words in the sentence. The relation between the phrases is indicated by the arrows.Grouping 1: [The spy saw the man] [with the binoculars]
Meaning: The spy with the binoculars is looking at a man (● Figure 11.6a).Grouping 2: [The spy saw] [the man with the binoculars]
Meaning: The spy is looking at a man who has a pair of binoculars (Figure 11.6b).But if we change just one word, as in the following sentence, only one meaning
becomes reasonable.
The bird saw the man with the binoculars.Because organizing the sentence as in Grouping 1, above, would require birds to
look through binoculars, this interpretation isn’t even considered, and the grouping cor-
responds to Grouping 2, above. The important point here is that the structure of the bird
sentence is the same as that of the spy sentence, but our knowledge of the properties of
spies and of birds infl uences the way we interpret the relationships between the words
in the sentence. This supports the interactionist approach because it demonstrates that
semantics can be important in determining parsing right at the beginning of the sentence.Sentence Understanding Infl uenced by the Environmental Setting Our interpreta-
tion of a sentence is infl uenced not only by the meaning of the words in the sentence,
but also by the meaning of a scene we may be observing. To investigate how observ-
ing particular objects in a scene can infl uence how we interpret a sentence, Michael
Tanenhaus and coworkers (1995) presented participants with objects on a table, as in
● Figure 11.7a. Participants looked at this display, which shows an apple on a towel,
another towel, a pencil, and a box. This display, called the one-apple condition, is vis-
ible to the participant as he or she listens to the following instructions:Put the apple on the towel in the box.The beginning of this sentence (Put the apple on the towel) sounds as if it indi-
cates that the apple should be moved to the other towel. But after hearing the lastpy saw the man] [with thespy saw] [the manCopyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.