The Influence Of Different Proficiency In The Second Sentence Processing On The Categorical Cognition Of Verbs

Sentences are built on the basis of certain grammatical rules.Therefore,lexical features and their cognitive levels have a direct impact on the quality of sentence processing.Researches suggest that core verbs play an important role in the understanding of sentences.Not only it has syntactic or semantic constraints on the meta structure of its co-occurrence,but also can integrate different levels of linguistic or non linguistic information effectively.Researches show that the verb sub-category information plays an important role in verb disambiguation and syntactic clause processing.The research on this field has important theoretical and practical significance for understanding the construction principles of human language,the rules of syntactic and semantic interaction,and the internal cognitive mechanism of sentence processing.In the past,there are few researches on the study of the category information of verbs,which are based on native speakers,but less on the second language speakers.So,in this study,the author used the different proficiency of the second language learners as the research objects,then discussed the influences of the different proficiency in the process of the second language processing on the cognition of the verb sub-category information.This study used garden path sentences as experimental material,selection of Han-the high and low level second language subjects,to explore the different cognitive characteristics of second language proficiency to the verb sub-category information in sentence processing.This study includes 3 experiments:Experiment 1 including 1a:sentence completion test and 1b:rapid presentation experimental paradigm.The purpose of this study is to examine the use of the sub-category information in the subject and to explore the sensitivity differences between the high and low second subjects.By experiment 1a we can find that there were differences between the scores of high and low subjects,significantly,the scores of high mature subjects were much better than those of low mature subjects.After analyzed the experiment's material,we can find that the scores of the subjects in the verb preference dimension were different,the scores in the SC dimension was better than that of the DO dimension.In Experiment 1b,there was no difference between high and low maturation subjects.Experiment 2 was a self-paced reading test which was used to explore whether high and low maturity subjects can use the verb sub-category preference frame to construct sentences during sentence processing.Finally,the results showed that no differences were found in the use of verbs in verb area.The processing time of the ambiguous sentences was significantly longer than that of the non-sentences in the SC dimension of the high-mature subjects.Differences were only existed in the verbs' preference dimension in the dis-ambiguous area of the low-mature subjects and therewas no difference in other dimensions.Experiment 3 was the eye movement experiment,the purpose was to explore the internal cognitive process of the use of sub-category information in high and low subjects in the state of natural reading.And then to explore the differences further in the specific performance.The results showed that there were differences in the first-pass fixation duration,the total fixation time and regression number of the subjects,and the first-pass fixation duration and the total fixation time of the high-mature subjects were lower than those of the low-mature subjects,high-mature subjects had more time in regression number than that of low-mature subjects.In the processing of ambiguous sentences,the time of high-mature subjects in area 2 was significantly longer than that in region 1 and region 3.There was a similar regression pattern in high and low mature subjects.According to the research results,this research conclusion are as follow:(1)The second language proficiency influences the use of sub-category information in syntactic processing,high-mature subjects to the use of verb sub-category of verb is obviously better than the use of low-mature subjects;the sensitivity of verbs sub-category information to second language subjects is lower than that of native speakers.(2)The verb sub-category information does not play a role in the initial stage of the second sentence processing but do in the re-analysis stage of the sentence,supporting the “two-stage theoretical model”.(3)For the second language speakers,English proficiency not only affects the on-line process of sentence processing,but also affects the off-line process.(4)There is no essential difference in syntactic processing between the second language and the native speaker,with the increase of second language proficiency,the second language speakers can achieve a kind of mother tongue state,supporting “D/P”theory model.