Phonological influences on choice of syntactic structure: A constraint-based approach to sentence production

One of the major debates in the sentence production literature concerns whether processes that construct the phonological form of words interact with processes that construct syntactic structure. Modular approaches argue that phonology should never influence syntax as production is characterized as a 2-stage process in which the construction of syntactic structure is encapsulated from the construction of phonological form. In contrast, interactive approaches argue that syntactic structure emerges from the interaction of semantic, syntactic and phonological processes.; The present study addressed this issue through an investigation of whether the phonological accessibility of nouns influences the choice between alternative syntactic structures (Ex. Double Object Dative - I gave the girl the book vs. Prepositional Dative - I gave the book to the girl). Research has indicated that as nouns increase in accessibility, or become easier to process, they tend to appear in relatively early sentence positions, which often has a direct influence on syntactic structure in English. However it is not clear as to whether syntactic structure is influenced only by semantic and syntactic accessibility, as the modular approach predicts, or whether the influence also extends to phonological accessibility, as the interactive approach predicts.; Three oral production experiments were conducted that measured the degree to which participants produced the dative alternatives. Experiment 1 manipulated phonological accessibility of the nouns through syllable length and frequency. Although participants produced structures that placed the more accessible noun earlier, the results were inconclusive as the experimental design confounded phonological and semantic factors. Experiment 2 reduced the influence of semantics by using nonsense words to represent the nouns. Phonological accessibility was manipulated by varying length and phonotactic probability. The results provide a strong indication of interactivity as participants produced structures with the more phonologically accessible nonsense word in the earlier sentence position. Experiment 3 explored the influence of verb bias, confirming that it has a large influence on structural choices and highlights the importance of considering this factor in future studies alongside factors that influence noun accessibility. The results are explained using an interactive production system that operates on principles from Constraint Satisfaction Theories.