Figuring Out How Verb-Particle Constructions Are Understood During L1 and L2 Reading.

ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper was to investigate first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) reading of verb particle constructions (VPCs) among English-French bilingual adults. VPCs, or phrasal verbs, are highly common collocations of a verb paired with a particle, such as eat up or chew out, that often convey a figurative meaning. VPCs vary in form (eat up the candy vs. eat the candy up) and in other factors, such as the semantic contribution of the constituent words to the overall meaning (semantic transparency) and frequency. Much like classic forms of idioms, VPCs are difficult for L2 users. Here, we present two experiments that use eye-tracking to discover factors that influence the ease with which VPCs are processed by bilingual readers. In Experiment 1, we comp

SUBMITTER: Tiv M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6684791 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature