1. Comprehensibility and subject-verb relations in complex sentences
- Author
-
Helen W. Hamilton and James Deese
- Subjects
Grammatical structure ,Grammar ,Noun ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Subject (grammar) ,Determiner ,Applied linguistics ,Verb ,General Medicine ,Psychology ,Syntax ,Linguistics ,media_common - Abstract
This study investigates the influence of ( a ) the surface form of complex sentences and ( b ) the appropriateness of the nouns which are subjects of the various clauses in these sentences for their respective verbs upon the comprehensibility of sentences. Base sentences cast as right-branching sentences are much more comprehensible than the same sentences cast in a center-embedded form. Furthermore, an intermediate case is intermediate in comprehensibility, and both the center-embedded and intermediate forms are sensitive to added clauses, while the right-branching form is not. Appropriateness of subject-noun and verb is a poor predictor of comprehensibility. These and earlier results lead to the conclusion that grammatical structure and not semantic relations is the major determiner of comprehensibility.
- Published
- 1971