Some structural properties of simple active and passive sentences

doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(65)80073-1

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Volume 4, Issue 5, October 1965, Pages 365-370

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(65)80073-1 Get rights and content

The present experiment studied the diversity and covariation of the words used by Ss as the actor, verb, and object of simple active and passive sentences. Two groups of 60 Ss were given sentence-frames and asked to generate sentences. Informational uncertainty of the words Ss used in these sentence-frames was used as a measure of diversity. The results were: (a) In the active sentence, the actor had much less uncertainty than the verb and object. The actor varied relatively independently of the verb and object, which covaried more as a unit. (b) In the passive sentence, the object (the first sentence part and traditional “subject”), verb, and actor did not show noticeably different uncertainties. The object and verb constrained each other more than the actor constrained either of them; however, the actor was constrained considerably by the verb. (c) The Ss did not treat the passive sentence-frame simply as a transformed active sentence-frame, since the pattern of uncertainty in the actor, verb, and object and the use of animate nouns as actors and objects differed consistently in the two grammatical forms. These results present negative evidence for the notion that Ss generate passive sentences simply by imposing a transformation on active sentences, as Miller's (1962) transformational model would imply; instead, the results argue for a sequential left-to-right generation of sentences.

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For example, words that meet the animacy requirements or preferences imposed by the preceding context elicit smaller N400 amplitudes than words that do not, suggesting a processing advantage for words that meet animacy restrictions or preferences (e.g., Nieuwland et al., 2013; Nieuwland and Van Berkum, 2005; 2006; Paczynski and Kuperberg, 2012). Sentence-initial animate nouns elicit smaller N400s than appropriately matched inanimate nouns (Weckerly and Kutas, 1999), a finding that is consistent with the tendency of English speakers to start sentences with animate entities (e.g., Branigan et al., 2008; see also Clark, 1965), and which therefore leads to a preference for sentence-initial animate nouns in listeners and readers. Similarly, Paczynski and Kuperberg (2011, Experiment 1) reported reduced N400s for inanimate patients (e.g., At the homestead the farmer plowed the meadow …) compared to equally plausible animate patients (e.g., At the homestead the farmer penalized the labourer …), consistent with the preference for patient roles to be filled by inanimate entities rather than animate entities.
In two ERP experiments, we investigated whether readers prioritize animacy over real-world event-knowledge during sentence comprehension. We used the paradigm of Paczynski and Kuperberg (2012), who argued that animacy is prioritized based on the observations that the ‘related anomaly effect’ (reduced N400s for context-related anomalous words compared to unrelated words) does not occur for animacy violations, and that animacy violations but not relatedness violations elicit P600 effects. Participants read passive sentences with plausible agents (e.g., The prescription for the mental disorder was written by the psychiatrist) or implausible agents that varied in animacy and semantic relatedness (schizophrenic/guard/pill/fence). In Experiment 1 (with a plausibility judgment task), plausible sentences elicited smaller N400s relative to all types of implausible sentences. Crucially, animate words elicited smaller N400s than inanimate words, and related words elicited smaller N400s than unrelated words, but Bayesian analysis revealed substantial evidence against an interaction between animacy and relatedness. Moreover, at the P600 time-window, we observed more positive ERPs for animate than inanimate words and for related than unrelated words at anterior regions. In Experiment 2 (without judgment task), we observed an N400 effect with animacy violations, but no other effects. Taken together, the results of our experiments fail to support a prioritized role of animacy information over real-world event-knowledge, but they support an interactive, constraint-based view on incremental semantic processing.
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For example, the passive The boy was hit by the truck is preferred over the active The truck hit the boy, because the animate noun is easier to retrieve from memory and thus pronounced first. This is consistent with the general tendency in English to locate animate concepts in early sentence subject positions, even when they are not agents (Bock, Loebell, & Morey, 1992; Clark, 1965). The accessibility of referential expressions is known to be modulated by context.
This work investigates the role of semantic similarity in sentence production and comprehension. Previous research suggests that animacy and conceptual similarity of the noun concepts within complex descriptive phrases modulate structural preferences in production, and processing cost in comprehension. For example, animate-head phrases such as the girl that the boy is pulling are rare in production and more difficult to understand in comprehension. In contrast, phrases with passive clauses such as the girl being pulled by the boy are commonly produced and more easily understood, as are inanimate-head structures such as the truck the boy is pulling. In three picture-based studies, we examined the mechanisms underlying semantic similarity effects in producing and comprehending these phrases. Study 1 investigated structural preferences in production, whereas Study 2 investigated processing cost in comprehension. Study 3 used eye-tracking to examine the time-course of production processes. The results showed that semantic similarity elicited competition during phrase planning, influenced the choice of syntactic structure in production, and engendered comprehension difficulty in animate-head active configurations. Structural preferences, fixation probabilities reflecting production planning processes and comprehension cost significantly correlated with measures of conceptual similarity across the three studies. We argue that similarity-based competition modulates sentence production and comprehension processes when verbs are planned or interpreted, i.e., when event-based semantic or syntactic roles are determined. In addition to task-specific processes, we suggest that a similar and shared semantic competition mechanism underlies both production and comprehension, a view consistent with existing evidence for common brain regions recruited in both tasks.
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The canonical serial order of semantic roles within grammatical constructions places Agents prior to Patients, as expressed in SVO or SOV constructions across languages. Linguistic theories have long placed a preference on Agents over Patients (Clark, 1965; Jackendoff, 1972, 1990; Silverstein, 1976; Zubin, 1979). Agents are given the highest ranking in most hierarchies of semantic roles (e.g., Aissen, 1999; Jackendoff, 1972; Silverstein, 1976), and some work has proposed a universal constraint that selects Agents as the default grammatical subject of sentences (Keenan, 1976).
Agents consistently appear prior to Patients in sentences, manual signs, and drawings, and Agents are responded to faster when presented in visual depictions of events. We hypothesized that this “Agent advantage” reflects Agents’ role in event structure. We investigated this question by manipulating the depictions of Agents and Patients in preparatory actions in wordless visual narratives. We found that Agents elicited a greater degree of predictions regarding upcoming events than Patients, that Agents are viewed longer than Patients, independent of serial order, and that visual depictions of actions are processed more quickly following the presentation of an Agent vs. a Patient. Taken together these findings support the notion that Agents initiate the building of event representation. We suggest that Agent First orders facilitate the interpretation of events as they unfold and that the saliency of Agents within visual representations of events is driven by anticipation of upcoming events.
Animacy and competition in relative clause production: A cross-linguistic investigation
2012, Cognitive Psychology
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Animates’ heightened accessibility thus influences choices of active vs. passive structures or double object vs. prepositional dative forms (McDonald et al., 1993). English speakers, for example, have a tendency to locate animate concepts in early sentence positions, even when they are not agents: the passive The boy was hit by the truck is preferred over the active The truck hit the boy (Bock, Loebell, & Morey, 1992; Clark, 1965). This tendency has often been cast in terms of subject function because in English, first-mentioned words are strongly correlated with syntactic subjects, although in other languages, animacy (and other factors) may also influence word order (i.e., early mention) in addition to syntactic function (Branigan, Pickering, & Tanaka, 2008; Prat-Sala & Branigan, 2000; Tanaka, Branigan, McLean, & Pickering, 2011; Yamashita & Chang, 2001).
This work investigates production preferences in different languages. Specifically, it examines how animacy, competition processes, and language-specific constraints shape speakers’ choices of structure. English, Spanish and Serbian speakers were presented with depicted events in which either an animate or inanimate entity was acted upon by an agent. Questions about the affected participant in these events prompted the production of relative clauses identifying these entities (e.g., the bag the woman is punching). Results indicated that in English, animacy plays a strong role in determining the choice of passive structures. In contrast, it plays a less prominent role in Spanish and Serbian structure choices, where more active structures were produced to varying degrees. Critically, the semantic similarity between the agent and the patient of the event correlated with the omission of the agent in all languages, indicating that competition resulted in the agent’s inhibition. Similarity also correlated with different functional choices in Spanish. The results suggest that similarity-based competition may influence various stages of production planning but its manifestations are constrained by language-specific grammatical options. Implications for models of sentence production and the relationship between production and comprehension are discussed.
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Experimental research has suggested consistent relationships between conceptual information and grammatical encoding, with certain conceptual features tending to be associated with particular choices of grammatical functions and constituent structures. For example, English speakers tend to produce sentences in which the Agent of an action or an animate (e.g., human) entity appeared as the sentence-initial subject (e.g., Clark, 1965; Clark & Begun, 1971; Dewart, 1979; Harris, 1978). In such cases, it is not possible to tell whether conceptual features affected grammatical function assignment, choice of word order, or both.
Theories of how people construct linguistic form during production are largely based on English and closely related languages. We report three experiments that used a structural priming paradigm to investigate grammatical encoding in Mandarin Chinese, in particular the way conceptual information is mapped onto grammatical structure. The results show that, in addition to persisting in using the same syntactic form across utterances, speakers of Mandarin persisted in their mappings from conceptual elements to syntactic elements, including both grammatical functions and linear surface word order positions. The results thus argue against a two-stage model where conceptual representations are first mapped onto grammatical functions, which are then in turn mapped onto surface linear positions. Instead, the results support a one-stage model where the processor computes in a single stage a structure that specifies both the linear order and the grammatical functions of its constituents.
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Six studies investigated the relationship between production and comprehension by examining how relative clause production mechanisms influence the probabilistic information used by comprehenders to understand these structures. Two production experiments show that accessibility-based mechanisms that are influenced by noun animacy and verb type shape relative clause production. Two corpus studies confirm these production mechanisms in naturally occurring productions. Two comprehension studies found that nouns and verb types occurring in structures that speakers do not produce are difficult to comprehend. Specifically, the probability of producing a passive structure for a verb type in a given animacy configuration, as measured in the production and corpus studies, predicts comprehension difficulty in active structures. Results suggest that the way in which the verb roles are typically mapped onto syntactic arguments in production plays a role in comprehension. Implications for the relationship between production, comprehension and language learning are discussed.

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¹: The work reported here was carried out while the author was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow and was supported in part by Public Health Service Research grants MH-06550-02 and MH-06550-03 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The present paper is based on an essay submitted to The Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the M.A. degree. The author is indebted to Dr. James Deese for his valuable suggestions in the analysis of this experiment and in the preparation of the manuscript. Acknowledgment is also made to the Baltimore Public Schools, whose cooperation is greatly appreciated.

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Some structural properties of simple active and passive sentences1

The short-term retention of active and passive sentences

Three models for the description of language

I. R. E. Trans. on Information Theor.

Syntactic structures