On The Influence Of Lexical Information On Chinese English Learners' Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution

The present study aims to investigate the influence of lexical informationon Chinese English learners' syntactic ambiguity resolution. Based on previoustheoretical and empirical studies and employing the self-paced moving-windowparadigm, two experiments are conducted here to explore respectively howthematic fit and verb frequency, as representatives of lexical information, willinfluence Chinese English learners' resolving English ambiguous sentences.Findings show that both thematic fit and verb frequency play an importantrole in Chinese English Learners' syntactic ambiguity resolution, for they canfacilitate sentence parsing by deliberate manipulation. The way they function iscongruous with the constraint-based theory of language processing. In addition,it seems that the strength of lexical information during parsing draws largelyfrom the properties of verb-specific information.This study has theoretical, practical as well as methodological significance.As a tentative study, it partially illuminates how Chinese English learnersprocess English sentences. More elaborate investigations are expected in futurestudies.