Processing Prescriptively Incorrect Comparative Particles: Evidence From Sentence-Matching and Eye-Tracking.

ABSTRACT: Speakers of a language sometimes use particular constructions which violate prescriptive grammar rules. Despite their prescriptive ungrammaticality, they can occur rather frequently. One such example is the comparative construction in Dutch and similarly in German, where the equative particle is used in comparative constructions instead of the prescriptively correct comparative particle (Dutch beter als Jan and German besser wie Jan "lit. better as John"). In a series of three experiments using sentence-matching and eye-tracking methodology, we investigated whether this grammatical norm violation is processed as grammatical, as ungrammatical, or whether it falls in between these two. We hypothesized that the latter would be the case. We analyzed our data using linear mixed effects models i

SUBMITTER: Hubers F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7034421 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature