TY - JOUR
T1 - Noun phrase interpretation and conceptual combination
AU - Murphy, Gregory L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by NIMH grant MH-41704. I thank Terry Au, Ken Springer, Edward Wisniewski, and anonymous reviewers for their comments on drafts of this article, and Michael Morris and Jean Liittschwager for help in preparing and running the experiments. Correspondence may be addressed to Gregory L. Murphy, Walter S. Hunter Laboratory of Psychology, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912.
PY - 1990/6
Y1 - 1990/6
N2 - Four experiments investigated the process by which people understand adjective-noun and noun-noun phrases in order to evaluate competing models of concept representation and conceptual combination. In three experiments, subjects judged whether noun phrases (NPs) were sensible. The results showed that when modifiers were conceptually complex (nouns and nonpredicating adjectives), the NPs took longer to interpret than when simpler modifiers (predicating adjectives) were used. Also, when an adjective modified part of a noun's schema, it was understood more quickly than when it modified nonschematic aspects of the noun. The results were interpreted as supporting a schema-modification view of comprehending NPs. A final experiment investigated this view by measuring the reading times of sentences containing NPs. The results showed that when the context activated relevant conceptual structures, all NPs were equally easy to comprehend, as predicted by the schema modification view. Without a helpful context, noun-noun phrases were considerably slower than adjective-noun phrases.
AB - Four experiments investigated the process by which people understand adjective-noun and noun-noun phrases in order to evaluate competing models of concept representation and conceptual combination. In three experiments, subjects judged whether noun phrases (NPs) were sensible. The results showed that when modifiers were conceptually complex (nouns and nonpredicating adjectives), the NPs took longer to interpret than when simpler modifiers (predicating adjectives) were used. Also, when an adjective modified part of a noun's schema, it was understood more quickly than when it modified nonschematic aspects of the noun. The results were interpreted as supporting a schema-modification view of comprehending NPs. A final experiment investigated this view by measuring the reading times of sentences containing NPs. The results showed that when the context activated relevant conceptual structures, all NPs were equally easy to comprehend, as predicted by the schema modification view. Without a helpful context, noun-noun phrases were considerably slower than adjective-noun phrases.
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U2 - 10.1016/0749-596X(90)90001-G
DO - 10.1016/0749-596X(90)90001-G
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0001400499
SN - 0749-596X
VL - 29
SP - 259
EP - 288
JO - Journal of Memory and Language
JF - Journal of Memory and Language
IS - 3
ER -