Event order versus syntactic structure in recall of ... - Springer Link

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1990

Event Order versus Syntactic Structure in Recall of Adverbial C o m p l e x S e n t e n c e s Jerwen Jou ~ and Richard J. Harris ~'2 Accepted July 20, 1989 Two experiments using recall of sentences examined two contrasting principles of clause ordering in a type of complex sentences: the main-clause-first (syntactic) principle and the event-order (or temporal-causal order) pri;, ciple. In Experiment 1, these two principles were studied in complex sentences with a main clause and a subordinate adverbial clause--e.g., "When she heard the thunder, she stopped playing Frisbee." In sentences of this type the subordinate clause typically describes a temporally or causally antecedent event, while the main clause describes a subsequent event in the temporal-causal sequence. These two principles make opposite predictions on what is the psychologically simpler or preferred order of the two clauses in this type of complex sentence. Results of Experiment 1 showed an overall preference in memory for main-clause-first order. In Experiment 2, complex sentences with a main clause and a subordinate clause not temporally or causally related were also used in a sentence recall task Similar results were obtained. The implication of these findings for the determinants of linguistic structures was discussed.

The purpose of this study was to critically test the psychological validity of two theories about a type of complex sentences. The first type of syntactic construction examined in the study was the class of adverbial complex sentences composed of a main clause and a subordinate adverbial clause, such as When the driver saw the red light, he stopped the car. An important feature of such sentences is that typically the subordinate clause describes an event that is temWe would like to thank William F. Brewer for the countless discussions with him throughout the period of conducting the research, for his help in the construction of the test sentences, and for his reading and editing of the earlier versions of the paper. We also thank Elissa Newport for her reading an early version of this paper and for her comments. 1 Department of Psychology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506. 2 Address all correspondence to Dr. Richard J. Harris, Department of Psychology, Bluemont Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506. 21

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Jou and Harris

porally and/or causally antecedent to the event described by the main clause. For example, Since her car broke down, she walked to her office. In this sentence, the car's malfunctioning occurred first and led to the woman's walking to her office. The main clause, on the other hand, describes, as a rule, an event that is a temporally or causally subsequent to the event mentioned in the subordinate clause. Researchers who have studied adverbial complex sentences have tended to focus their attention either on (a) the issue of main-clause-first versus mainclause-second order or on (b) the temporal-causal sequence of the events mentioned in the clauses (i.e., underlying event order). Some researchers suggested that main-to-subordinate clause order (M-S) is simpler than, and preferred over, the subordinate-to-main clause order (S-M) (Fodor, Bever, & Garrett, 1974; Clark & Clark, 1977). Another group of researchers, on the other hand, has suggested that the psychologically important factor in the ordering of clauses in a sentence is whether the linguistic clause order is consistent with the temporal order of the described events (Osgood, 1971, 1980; Opacic, 1973; Sridhar, 1980). These two positions make very different predictions for some common types of complex sentences. In English it is often the case that if the subordinate clause is put before the main clause, the clause order corresponds to the event order even though it violates the main-clause-first principle--e.g., Since her car broke down, she walked to her office. On the other hand, if the main clause is placed before the subordinate clause, the linguistic clause order is the reverse of the temporal-causal order of events--e.g., She walked to her office since her car broke down. E. Clark (1970, 1973), in the context of a discussion of language acquisition, has provided a discussion of these two contrasting properties of the adverbial complex sentences. One important fact about such sentences, as she pointed out, is that the majority of English adverbial conjunctions are of the type that put these two principles in opposition (1970, 1973). We think that the theoretical conflict between the two classes of theories has not as yet been clearly resolved, and so the present study is an effort to examine these two classes of theories through two experiments testing the preference for one ordering of clauses as opposed to the other in complex adverbial sentences, using sentence recall as the measure of psychological complexity of sentences. M-S ORDER PRINCIPLE

E. Clark (1973) found that when young children of 3.5 to 4 years of age started to use two-clause sentences, they invariably learned to use coordinate

Event Order versus Syntactic Structure

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clauses in the order of event occurrence before they could produce any complex sentences. But once they started to introduce subordinate clauses into their twoclause sentences, the subordinate clause always followed the main clause--i.e., a clause order that is the opposite of the event order of the two events. Only later did the children start to prepose the subordinate clause, thus allowing them to produce the two events in their temporal order again in the form of a complex sentence. Therefore, to the degree that order of acquisition can be used as an index of psychological complexity, M-S order (which is the reverse of event order) may be simpler than S-M order (which coincides with event temporal order). Thus, when clause subordination is first introduced into a sentence in children's spontaneous speech, the M-S order overrides the event temporal order (S-M). One of the most widely cited studies in this area is a recall experiment carried out by Clark and Clark (1968). Researchers from both theoretical camps frequently cite this study as evidence for their position. In the Clark and Clark study, after was the only conjunction of the type that they used that falls in the category used in the present study. A close look at Clark and Clark's (1968) data indicated that as far as the conjunction after is concerned, the recall data strongly favors a main-clause-first order. Other studies in a variety of research paradigms have shown a preference or relative ease for M-S clause order, when compared with S-M order (Fodor et al., 1974; Holmes, 1973). Fodor et al. (1974) reported that the subjects rated the adverbial preposed sentence (When Mary left, Max was happy) as more difficult than a corresponding adverbial final sentence (Max was happy when Mary left). Holmes (1973), using the technique of rapid serial visual presentation of words, found that a complex sentence with the adverbial clause following the main clause was easier to perceive than one with the adverbial clause preceding the main clause. Other empirical findings with adults and children as subjects indicated that M-S is a psychologically simpler order than S-M (Bever & Townsend, 1979; Jarvella & Herman, 1972; Townsend & Bever, 1978; Scholnick & Wing 1982). Fodor et al. (1974), as well as Clark and Clark (1977), have suggested that there is a general sentence-processing strategy in which the language users assume that the first noun-verb string is the main clause or independent clause, unless the string is explicitly marked in the surface structure as subordinate. They further suggested that linguistic constructions that violate this perceptual strategy will be more difficult to comprehend. Some theorists argued that some of the historical syntactic rule changes in English have been caused by such a sentence-processing strategy used by the speakers of the English language (Bever & Langendoen, 1971; Bever & Townsend, 1979).

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Jou and Harris

TEMPORAL-CAUSAL ORDER PRINCIPLE

In contrast to the research just discussed, there is another set of studies that support a perceptual or cognitive order principle. This principle makes predictions that are the reverse of the main-clause-first principle for a large number of the complex sentences in English. Johnson (1975) had preschool children act out instructions in sentences with before and after as conjunctions, and found that children's performance was superior with sentence instructions in which order of mention and order of event occurrence corresponded, compared with sentence instructions where these two orders did not coincide. However, he reported that no difference was found between before-preposed and after-centered sentences (i.e., Before E2 E1 vs. E2 after El, where E2 and E1 stand for event 2 and event 1). This result can be interpreted to indicate that the factor affecting children's performance was only the underlying event order of the clauses, and that syntactic M-S versus S-M order made no difference for children's performance. Other researchers reported findings consistent with this view (Fillenbaum, 1971; French & Brown, 1976; French, 1988; Townsend & Ravelo, 1980; Barrie-Blackley, 1973; Coker, 1978; Goodz, 1982; Hatch, 1971; Katz & Brent, 1968; Ehri & Galanis, 1980). Similarly, in a sentence reconstruction task using clauses as building blocks, Opacic (1973) reported that for all conjunctions but one (i.e., because), the natural order (or the event temporal order) was given in the output sentences more frequently and with faster speed than was the nonevent order. In addition to the above studies, all done in English, there is cross-language evidence that seems to provide strong support for the concept of perceptual and cognitive ordering of events being reflected in linguistic structure. After investigating language universals across 30 languages, Greenberg (1963) concluded that the conditional clause (e.g., introduced by i/') preceding the conclusion was the preferred order in all 30 languages investigated. Likewise, in an English sentence reconstruction experiment, Chinese speakers with English as a second language demonstrated a strong bias to using the temporal or causal order for the type of sentences used in this study (Jou, 1981). In the Chinese language, an S-M order in adverbial complex sentences is the normal order, and an M-S order is almost never used (i.e., is ungrammatical) except in circumstances where the speaker wants to append, after a long pause, an afterthought to the completed sentence (Chao, 1965). The Chinese subjects might have been influenced by their native language structure when they constructed the English complex sentences. The above findings can be subsumed under what Clark and Clark (1977) call the "order of mention" principle or what Osgood (1980) calls the "naturalness" principle. These theories hypothesize that there is a universal human

Event Order versus Syntactic Structure

25

perceptual and cognitive organization of the events of the world, and that linguistic structure is constrained by these general perceptual and cognitive bases (Bever, 1970b; Katz & Brent, 1968; Osgood, 1971, 1980). Osgood (1980) proposed, for example, that the structures developed and utilized in prelinguistic cognitive processing is shared by both linguistic and nonlinguistic (perceptual) information-processing systems. This position assumes that the more sentences correspond in their surface forms to the cognitive structures developed in prelinguistic perceptual-motor experiences, the earlier they will be understood and produced by children, and the more easily they will be processed in both comprehension and production by adults. As far as two-clause sentences are concerned, the naturalness position argues that the natural ordering of clauses should be preferred, since events in temporal and logical relations are typically perceived in terms of an antecedent/subsequent pattern. As discussed earlier, the M-S-order and event-order theories make opposite predictions for many adverbial complex sentences in English. For instance, according to Osgood (1980), Because Grampa fell on the ice, he broke his leg is the natural order, whereas Grampa broke his leg because he fell on the ice is the unnatural order (p. 234). The main-clause-first principle, on the other hand, would make the opposite prediction. For other constructions, these two positions make different, but not opposite, predictions. These are the cases where the two events have no fixed underlying order. For example, the naturalness principle predicts that there should be no difference between sentence a and sentence b in each of the following pairs. la. While John played, Mary sang. lb. Mary sang while John played. 2a. Although Mary sang, John wouldn't play. 2b. John wouldn't play, although Mary sang (Osgood, 1980, p. 131). However, the main-clause-first view would predict that the second sentence in each pair is psychologically simpler.

THE PRESENT

APPROACH

In some studies, the temporal effect was confounded with M-S-order effect. For example, in Barrie-Blackley's (1973) study (using after, before, and until), the temporal order effect found for these conjunctions was confounded with MS effect, since the effect can also be considered as an M-S clause order effect for two of the three conjunctions used. This confounding also occurs in other studies using before to test for the temporal order effect. The major focus of

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the present experiments is to examine type of complex sentences where the two theories make different predictions. Sentence recall has been frequently used to study relative psychological preference or complexity of sentence syntactic structures (Clark & Clark, 1968; Bock & Brewer, 1974; Bock, 1982). The first experiment in this paper is juxtaposing the main-clause-first principle against the event-order principle in a sentence recall task.

EXPERIMENT 1

Experiment 1 examined the most common type of adverbial subordinate complex sentences in English. It focused on the issue of which principle, the main-clause-first principle or the event-order principle, prevails over the other in recall when these two principles make exactly opposite predictions. For example, according to the main-clause-first theory, She stopped playing Frisbee when she heard the thunder is a simpler form, whereas, according to the naturalness theory, When she heard the thunder, she stopped playing Frisbee is simpler. Both the M-S and the S-M orders were used in memory input sentences. The reversal in clause order that occurs from the input to the output sentences can be used as an index of preference for a certain order. When the two principles are in a mutually exclusive condition, one principle may have greater psychological weight than the other. It is also possible that there could be no difference in recall. In that case, neither of the two principles has functional significance.

MeNod Subjects. Two groups of 25 subjects took part in this experiment. The subjects were from introductory psychology courses and participated in the experiment as partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Materials. Nine subordinate-clause single-word conjunctions were selected. Although these nine conjunctions do not exhaust all the possible conjunctions in this category, they represent most of the single-word conjunctions with a high frequency of usage in English (Jespersen, 1964; Curme, 1947; Zandvoort, 1966). These nine conjunctions express temporal, causal, and conditional relationships between the first and the second events. The nine conjunctions are after, when, since (temporal); because, since, as (causal); if, unless, whenever (conditional). There were only eight distinct lexical items, since the conjunction since was used both in the temporal sense and in the causal sense. Each word was then used to generate six distinct pairs of complex sentences with a main clause and an adverbial subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction. One member

Event Order versus Syntactic Structure

27

of the pair was in M-S order, and the other in S-M order. A total of 54 pairs of such complex sentences were generated. The entire set of sentences is given in Appendix A. Two lists of 54 sentences were constructed (List A and List B), containing an equal number of sentences of each clause order, such that no sentences with the same underlying content were repeated. A given subject received either List A or List B, thus ensuring that for a given subject, content was never repeated. Each list of 54 experimental sentences was first divided into nine sublists with 6 sentences in each sublist. The constraint used in forming the sublist was that the conjunctions and clause order be about as evenly represented in each sublist as possible. The order of the six sentences in a sublist was then randomized. Finally, a filler sentence was added at the beginning of each sublist to reduce the primacy effects. The fillers were unrelated both in meaning and in structure to the experimental sentences. The two versions of a given sentence (List A or List B) appeared at the same serial position across the two experimental lists. The nine sublists along with the fillers were then tape-recorded at normal conversational speed. A pause long enough for the speaker to silently repeat the read sentence was inserted between one sentence and another. The total number of sentences in an experimental list was 63. Procedure. Subjects were tested in small groups of 3 to 15 individuals. They listened to nine sublists, one at a time. They were told to recall the sentences verbatim, if possible, but to write down anything they could remember otherwise. Each subject received a recall booklet. For each sublist, the first sheet was a blank sheet, which was followed by an arithmetic sheet where two 2-digit multiplication problems appeared. Each presentation of a sublist was followed by a 4.5-min period for carrying out the arithmetic problems and writing down the sentences.

Results

Scoring. The recalled sentences were classified into three classes: Correct Recall, Reversed Order, and Others categories. The results were scored in terms of these three classes plus a category for omissions. The categories of clause order Reversal and Correct Recall were used as measures of the preference for and complexity of a clause order. The number of reversals indicates the degree to which a particular clause order tends to shift toward the opposite order in memory. Hence, the reversed order in the output can be taken as the preferred form of the sentence, while the number of correct items reflects the preference for the given input order. The sentences classified as reversed were scored with a strict criterion and by a more inclusive criterion. With the inclusive criterion, any sentence was considered a reversal if the mention order of the two clauses was reversed (even

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if the original conjunction was replaced with some other subordinate conjunction similar in meaning). With the strict criterion, only those recalled sentences that both (a) reversed the mention order of the clauses and (b) retained the original conjunctions were counted. In reporting the F and p values, only those of the Inclusive Reversed class will be indicated in the text, unless the two scoring criteria differ in significance/nonsignificance decision. Also, when an effect was shown to be significant by a sentence test (using sentence as a random variable), such result implies a more significant level with a subject test (subjects as a random variable) in the experiment. Analyses. With the number of reversals as the dependent measure, the clause order main effect is significant, F(1, 49) - 10.31, p < .0023 (by subject), and F(1, 45) -- 5.8, p < .020 (by sentence), indicating an overall advantage for M-S order. The conjunction by clause order interaction is nonsignificant when tested on the Strict Reversed class but is significant when tested on the Inclusive Reversed class, F(6, 45) -- 2.87,p < .018 (by sentence). This reflects a moderate trend for preferring S-M order for when, whenever, and if in the Inclusive Reversed category. Tests on the number of sentences correctly recalled showed no significant difference between the two clause orders. However, a conjunction by conjunction examination shows that several individual conjunctions (if, when, whenever, and because) do not follow this neutral trend. For these conjunctions, the trend is consistent with the direction of reversing; i.e., a clause order correctly recalled more frequently tends to be reversed less frequently from input to output, suggesting that the input clause order is the preferred clause order. Table I presents a summary of these recall data. Since the number of correct recalls is not totally independent of the reversed category, it does not provide a completely independent source of information. Since there seems to be a continuous shift in the preference for the two clause orders from a very strong preference for M-S, through an approximately neutral point, toward a moderate reference for S-M, we reordered those nine conjunctions in order of a decreasing M-S preference. This was done on both Strict Reversed and Inclusive Reversed. The preference for MS order is measured by the ratio of the number of Reversed into M-S to the number of Reversed into S-M. This continuum of the nine conjunctions on the M-S preference dimension is presented in Table II. A value close to unity indicates that there were roughly equal numbers of reversals in either direction in recall. This seems to be the case for conjunction if in the Inclusive Reversed class. The distribution of these nine conjunctions along the M-S preference dimension based on Strict Reversed is approximately comparable to the one based on Inclusive Reversed. The six conjunctions that showed a bias in favor of M-S order are because, since, as, after, since, and unless.

Event Order versus Syntactic Structure

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Table I. Experiment 1: Frequencies of Sentence Recalls by Category ~ Category Conjunction type Temporal After When Since Causal Because Since As Conditional If Unless Whenever Total

Input and order

Inclusive reversed

Strict reversed

Correct recall

Omission

M-S input S-M input M-S input S-M input M-S input S-M input

10 17 21 11 5 9

(5) (12) (16) (10) (4) (8)

55 53 47 60 71 75

60 57 55 60 56 51

25 23 27 19 18 15

M-S S-M M-S S-M M-S S-M

input input input input input input

2 18 3 17 8 13

(0) (13) (1) (6) (3) (6)

65 34 42 43 34 35

52 45 53 59 46 43

31 53 52 31 62 59

M-S S-M M-S S-M M-S S-M M-S S-M

input input input input input input input input

7 6 3 22 15 5 74 118

(7) (4) (2) (14) (4) (3) (42) (76)

66 75 37 31 35 42 452 448

68 60 86 67 47 56 523 498

9 9 24 30 53 47 30t 286

Others

"The row total for each conjunction is 150. The row total for each of the bottom two rows is 1,350.

The three conjunctions that show either little bias or a moderate bias for SM are if, whenever, and when. As shown in Table I, the total number of M-S input sentences being transformed to S-M output sentences is 74, as opposed to 118 of S-M input sentences being transformed to M-S sentences. Such an asymmetry in the direction of reversal indicates a preference for M-S order compared with SM order. When only the clause order was considered regardless of whether the original conjunction was retained or changed to a different adverbial in the output sentence, 659 out of a total of 1,350 input sentences retained the M-S order in output, as compared with 613 of the input sentences retaining the S-M order in the output, showing that M-S input order was more frequently retained in output sentences.

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Table II. Conjunctions Ranked in Order of Decreasing M-S Preference in Recall a i

i

Strict reversed Because Unless Since (causal) After Since (temporal) As Whenever When If

I

i

Inclusive reversed 13.006 7.00 6.00 2.40 2.00 2.00 0.75 0.62 0.57

Because Unless Since (causal) Since (temporal) After As If When Whenever

9.00 7.33 5.66 1.80 1.70 1.60 0.85 0.52 0.33

"The number in the table is the ratio of reversals to M-S order to reversals to S-M order. bin the Strict Reversed class, zero reverse occurred toward S-M for because; 13 is the number of reversals to M-S order.

Discussion

The finding from the experiment is that where the main-clause-first principle is in competition with the event-order principle, the main-clause-first principle overrides the temporal-causal event-order principle in a statistical sense. This finding also indicates that in adult m e m o r y of this type of complex sentences, temporal-causal order of events does not play a major role. Instead, the canonical syntactic structure plays a more significant role. However, this conclusion must be taken in a comparative, rather than an absolute, sense. The data we actually observed are better conceptualized as a continuum of an M-S preference, albeit an asymmetrical one, with a greater proportion of the continuum favoring the M-S order, and a smaller proportion favoring S-M order. It may be concluded that, by and large, the overall recall data support a general M-S principle as the major determinant of clause order in adverbial complex sentences. The next experiment will examine the relative preference of these two clause orders in memory, still using adverbial main-subordinate-clause structure, but without an underlying temporal or causal sequence connecting the two events.

EXPERIMENT

2

As noted in the introduction of this paper, when the two events in sentences do not have a temporal or causal relation between them, the naturalness ordering

Event Order versus Syntactic Structure

31

theory predicts no difference in the preference for one or the other of the orders. The M-S ordering theory, on the other hand, predicts that M-S sequence is still the preferred order of the two clauses.

Method Subjects. Forty subjects from an introductory psychology course took part in this experiment to meet the partial requirement of the course. They were run in small groups of from 3 to 15 each. Materials. A set of complex sentences was constructed by selecting two underlying events that do not have a fixed event order. For instance, He doesn't drink, although he smokes a lot versus Although he smokes a lot, he doesn't drink. The first type of relation is a logical contrasting relation (or adversative relation) between the two events, as illustrated by the above example. There were six pairs of such sentences. One member of each pair had M-S syntactic structure and the other had S-M structure. The same clause order variation will be made for the pairs of sentences for the other two conjunctions, i.e., while and whereas. The second type of relation is a concurrent temporal relationship. For instance, Dave was painting the garage, while Tom was washing the car versus While Tom was washing the car, Dave was painting the garage. Also, six pairs of such sentences were constructed using the conjunction while. The third type of semantic relation is somewhat similar to the first type-namely, a general contrasting relation. The conjunction used was whereas: Although signifies a concession but whereas a strong contrast. An example is Carrots are low in calories, whereas sugar is high in calories versus Whereas sugar is high in calories, carrots are low in calories. Six pairs of such sentences were constructed with whereas as the conjunction. A common characteristic for all 18 pairs of sentences generated by using although, while, and whereas is that the two events were selected to possess as symmetrical and/or coordinate an event relation as possible. In addition, there were other types of sentences included in the recall task that were not directly related to the critical test for the two competing theories. These sentences both served as fillers and provided some additional data having some indirect bearing on the issue being studied here. One of these types varied the event-order factor while holding syntactic structure constant by the joining together of two coordinate clauses. For example, sentences such as He stopped at the stop sign, and then he crossed the street versus He crossed the street, but first he stopped at the stop sign were used. The other type of filler sentences varied the two factors, syntactic structure and temporal order, simultaneously and congruently. An example is He had his car checked before he started on

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the trip versus Before he started on the trip, he had his car checked. For a full set of both the experimental sentences and the two types of filler sentences used, see Appendix B. Three conjunctions were used in the experimental set (although, while, and whereas). Similarly, three conjunctions were used in the first filler set (and then vs. but first; so vs. for; and a natural but vs. an unnatural but. See Appendix B for details). Only two conjuctions were used in the second set of filler sentences (before and until). Hence, a total of eight distinct conjunctions were used. (Note that two versions of a conjunction, such as and then vs. but first, are considered one conjunction here. Another pair of such conjunctions is so vs. for.) With six pairs of sentences per conjunction, the whole list was made of 48 pairs of contrasting sentences, including the 18 experimental sentences, and 30 filler sentences. The same method as used in the first experiment was employed to split the sentences pairs into two lists and further into short sublists, except that the 30 fillers were treated just as if they were the experimental sentences in the list construction. At the beginning of each sublist, an additional filler sentence was attached to absorb the primacy effect. This one additional filler for each sublist was formed in the same manner as in Experiment 1. To increase the percent of recall, we used Cue words in this experiment. One word from each clause of the input sentence was selected to serve as the cue word. The criterion of selection of the cue word was that the word be a good reminder of the content of the clause. On the recall sheet, the two cue words for each target sentence were arranged vertically, each within parentheses, one on top of the other, with the relative positions of the two words counterbalanced across conditions and subjects. Procedure. Procedures and instructions were the same as those of Experiment 1, except that the subjects were told that the cue words were provided to help them recall the sentences, but that the relative positions of the two cue words had no relation to the order of the two clauses from which the cue words were taken. The whole session lasted about 50 minutes.

Results Scoring. The responses were scored as one of four classes, Reversed Clause Order, Correct Recall, Omission, and Other. The criteria for classifying output sentences into different categories were the same as in Experiment 1. The frequency in each category is summarized in Table III. The ratio of the number of reversals to the M-S order to the number of reversals to the S-M order was calculated again for the three conjunctions of the experimental set and also listed in Table III in decreasing order. Analyses. For the experimental set of sentences, the Strict Reversal class

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Table III. Experiment 2: Frequencies of Sentence Recall and Reversal Ratios" Frequencies of recall: Category Conjunction type Although While Whereas

Input and order

Inclusive reversed

M-S input S-M input M-S input S-M input M-S input S-M input

24 10 10 62 12 44

Strict reversed

Correct recall

(1) (1) (3) (6) (1) (4)

13 34 68 26 45 32

Omission 12 13 23 I5 1i I0

Others 71 63 19 17 52 34

Ratios of reversals: Category Strict reversed Whereas While Although

Inclusive reversed 4 2 t

While Whereas Although

6.20 3.66 0.42

~The ratio is the number of reversals to M-S order to the number of reversals to S-M order. A ratio greater than 1 is in favor of M-S order.

yielded a nonsignificant clause order effect. However, the Inclusive Reversed class did produce a significant difference, F(1, 39) = 29.16, p < .0001 (by subject), and F(1, 15) = 25.92, p < .0001 (by sentence). Other significant effects are conjunction, F(2, 15) = 6.24, p < .01, and conjunction by order interaction, F(2, 15) = 16.08, p < .0002 (by sentence). The trend in correct recall also favors an M-S clause order, F(1, 39) = 4.58, p < .038 (by subject), although the test by sentence resulted in a nonsignificant difference. Of the three conjunctions used in the experimental set, two (while and whereas) clearly support the M-S principle, whereas one (although) moderately supports S-M order. The overall pattern is similar to that of Experiment 1 (see Table III). For the first set of filler sentences where two coordinate clauses were used, the two Reversed categories and the Correct Recall category all showed a significant difference in favor of the clause order that is consistent with the temporal order. The p ' s are all less than .05. Thus, the recall data of this set of filler sentences showed that clause order consistent with the temporal order is the preferred order in memory when there is no main and subordinate syntactic structure to compete with the temporal order. For the second set of filler sentences where the temporal order and the syntactic order vary in congruence, a very consistent and strong clause order N~iin effect favoring M-S (i.e., also the temporal order) was obtained. No other effect is significant. E v e r y p is less than .0001 for both classes of reversals and correct recall either by subject or by sentence test.

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The results of the two sets of fillers in frequencies of recall and reversal ratios are listed in Table IV.

Discussion An explanation for the different results for the experimental sentences regarding the clause order effect between the two scoring criteria (Strict Reversed vs. Inclusive Reversed) should be given. With this category of sentences, subjects frequently moved the conjunctions although, while, and whereas from sentence-initial position to sentence-central position (or occasionally moved them in the reverse direction) without switching the order of the two clauses. For example, the conjunction while in the input sentence While Event A, Event B was far more frequently moved to sentence-central position, resulting in an

T a b l e IV. Results for the Filler Sentences of Experiment 2 Frequencies of recalls by categories Category Conjunction And then/ But first So/for But Before Until

Input and ordee'

Inclusive reversed

Strict reversed

Correct recall

Omission

Others

El-E2 input E2-E1 input El-E2 input E2-E1 input El-E2 input E2-E1 input M-S input S-M input M-S input S-M input

2 35 9 9 3 22 5 51 2 38

(2) (24) (9) (9) (2) (17) (4) (49) (1) (35)

74 39 77 41 43 28 77 33 72 20

8 2 5 6 14 5 21 15 15 I3

36 44 29 64 60 65 17 21 3t 49

Reversal ratios for the fillers in decreasing order Inclusive reversed Until And then/ But first Before But So/for

19 17.50 10.20 7.33 1

" E1 stands for Event 1, and E2 for Event 2.

Strict reversed Until Before and then/ But first But So/for

32 12.20 12 8.5 1

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output sentence, Event A, while Event B than was the while in Event B, while Event A moved to sentence-initial position (While Event B, Event A). When these cases of shifting conjunctions without switching the two clauses were excluded from reversal class, the difference in the number of reversals (Strict Reversals) became nonsignificant. However, there is a legitimate reason to consider these cases as belonging in the reversed class. Since the semantic relation of the two clauses is symmetrical, either event can serve equally well as a presupposition or as an assertion (Bever, 1970a; Townsend & Bever, 1978; Holmes, 1973). In sentence memory, the presupposition-assertion distinction can be quickly and easily forgotten (Bever, 1970a; Fodor et al., 1974), even when the two events are not symmetrical in relation. It is simply natural that the failure to memorize this distinction is more frequent when the two events are symmetrical, as is the case in this experiment. When the two events are symmetrical and the distinction of presupposition and assertion is arbitrary and consequently easily lost in the memory, the direction of subordinate conjunction shift in memory is a good indication of a preference for position of the subordinate clause. The tendency to move while from sentence-initial position to sentencecentral position far exceeds the tendency to move it from sentence-central position to sentence-initial position. The frequency for the former was 53 out of a total of 120 input sentences as compared with only 7 for the latter. The same pattern was observed for whereas, with 33 cases of shifting to sentence-central position as compared with only 8 cases of shifting from central position to initial position. The pattern of conjunction shift as illustrated above can rule out the poSsibility that the cause for shifting conjunctions from one position' to another is that one of the clauses is semantically better suited for serving as a presupposition. Instead, it indicates that the position of a conjunction (sentence initial vs. central) is the cause for the shifting. Note that such shifting is possible only when the two events are symmetrically related. When the semantic relation is not symmetrical, as is the case for sentences of Experiment 1, the shifting of the conjunction from one clause to another will generate anomalous sentences~ Therefore, the frequent shifting of the conjunctions from the input to the output is evidence for the successful design of the symmetrical relations between the two clauses. Three points need to be recapitulated. First, as in Experiment 1, M-S order is shown to be an order favored by memory in the statistical sense. The naturalness ordering principle predicted no difference for the set of experimental sentences, and yet there is a main effect in favor of M-S order. Second, temporal order factor is a strong factor where there is no competing

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syntactic factor, as is shown by the first set of filler data. Third, when the two factors are in congruent relation, the preferred order consistently coincides with the better order, as shown by the second set of filler data.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

In cases where subordination of temporally ordered clauses exists, by and large, a bias was found to occur in recall of sentences in favor of M-S structure. This finding is generally in agreement with Clark's developmental spontaneous speech production data (1970, 1973), and with adults' sentence rating data (Fodor et al., 1974), rapid perception data (Holmes, 1973), and many other findings noted in the introduction. The first set of filler sentences provided some interesting data having bearing on the issue being investigated in this study. In recall of sentences, subjects had a strong tendency to convert an input Event 2-Event 1 order coordinate sentence by applying (unconsciously, perhaps) a subordination transformation to the second clause. Thus, subordination of a clause may be a linguistic device to de-emphasize the chronological order and to give language users more freedom in choosing the mention order of the two events, tt seems that the main function of syntactic subordination is to reduce the status of one of the two events into an ancillary position, such as a presupposed or contingency event. The event in that clause is no longer in parallel with the other event. In other words, the sense of two events may be greatly weakened in an adverbial complex sentence. Therefore, the serial information is not so crucial in the complex sentence as it is in the coordinate sentence. This seems to be a point that has been missed by the theorists holding an unqualified event order position when they hypothesized that natural order is the only significant determinant of clause order. The implication of this finding is that factors other than the natural perceptual and cognitive determinants can be important bases for clause organization. One of such factors seems to be the dominant linguistic convention of starting a sentence with a main clause, as is the case in English. Therefore, it can be argued that a syntactic factor, i.e., MS principle, plays a major role in clause ordering in English regardless of whether the two events are temporally ordered or synchronical. Some data showed that Chinese subjects speaking English as a second language used significantly more S-M order in an English sentence reconstruction task for the same conjunctions as used in the two experiments of this study as compared with the native Americans (Jou, 1981). These data and the sentence recall data from the native speakers in this study seem to suggest that ordering events in accordance with the temporal sequence may not be a ianguage-uni-

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versal principle of organizing the two clauses of a sentence. The dominant determinant of clause ordering may be primarily a language-specific property.

APPENDIX

A

Experimental Sentences Used in Experiment 1

(Only S-M versions were listed. M-S versions can be derived by reversing the clause order.) After

After she washed her hair, she went to the party. 2. After he listened to the educational channel, he fell asleep. 3. After they ate at a restaurant, they went to see a movie. After she got home from her job, she called her boyfriend. 5. After he graduated from college, he joined the navy. 6. After he handed in his exam, he went out for a beer. .

.

When 1. When they heard the tornado siren, they went into the cellar. 2. When she heard the knocking on the door, she ran downstains to open the door. When she heard the thunder, she stopped playing Frisbee. 4. When we went to the beach, we got sunburned. 5. When he saw the exam, he knew he was going to fail. 6. When he went to his date's room, he found the door locked. o

Since

Since he ate supper, he has had three snacks. Since he met the sorority girl, he has stopped going to class. Since he moved to New York City, he has gone home four times. Since they had their first child, they have gone to the movies together only once. . Since she was admitted into the hospital, she has had two major operations. Since he retired last year, he has been traveling all over the country.

1. 2. 3. 4.

.

Because 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Because Because Because Because Because

she stopped going to class, she flunked the course. he hated Yale, he transferred to Northwestern. he couldn't swim, he sank to the bottom of the pool. he ran out of quarters, he stopped playing Pac-Man. she lost her scholarship, she dropped out of school.

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6. Because he couldn't pay the rent, he moved out of the apartment. Since 1. Since I was daydreaming about spring break, I couldn't concentrate on the lecture. 2. Since he was able to eat three pizzas in five minutes, he won the the contest. 3. Since he didn't like either candidate, he didn't vote. 4. Since he had majored in computer science, he had five job offers. 5. Since I promised not to date anyone else, I decided to refuse the invitation. Since he had a lot of work to do, he decided not to go home. .

As 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

As As As As As As

she started eating dorm food, she got much fatter. she wanted to have children, she decided to get married. we live in a dorm, we cannot have a pet cat. he was a Mormon, he didn't drink. she was dieting, she skipped dessert. they never really loved each other, they divorced six months later.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

If he gets a C on the final exam, he will pass chemistry. If he gets the summer job, he will buy a new car. If she can graduate in December, she can save half a year's tuition. If he had a map of the city, he Wouldn't be lost. If he shaves off his beard, he will look younger. If they had got in line at 5:00 a.m., they could have had front row seats.

If

Unless 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Unless Unless Unless Unless Unless Unless

he cheats, he will lose the card game. She can find a roommate, she cannot rent the apartment. she wears a dress, she won't get the job. he works all night, he will not finish the term paper. he trips, he will win the race. he is sick, he will be teaching the class.

Whenever 1. Whenever 2. Whenever 3. Whenever 4. Whenever 5. Whenever

he plays poker, he loses his money. he takes a math course, he fails. she goes to an opera, she gets a headache. he sees a cigarette, he feels like smoking again. he is not in class, he is playing pool.

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6. Whenever she sees a dog, she is frightened.

APPENDIX B

Experimental Sentences Used in Experiment 2 (although, while, whereas: S-M versions) Although 1. Although he was good at English, he was weak in math. 2. Although I like cats, I don't like dogs. 3. Although he smokes a lot, he doesn't diink. 4. Although the price increase benefited the sellers, it hurt the customers. 5. Although the fall in Minnesota is beautiful, the winter is terribly cold. 6. Although the sun shines brightly, the wind blows hard. While 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Whereas 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

While While While While While While news.

John was driving, Mary was watching the scenery. Cathy was painting the garage, Jack was washing the car. Ed was playing football, Jeff was playing tennis. Stan was talking to the guests, Charlie was preparing food. Tom was studying, Dan was listening to music. Paul was eating his supper, Henry was watching the evening

Whereas Whereas Whereas Whereas Whereas Whereas

this year's summer was dry, last year's summer was wet. lead is heavy, aluminum is light. Texas is large, Rhode Island is small. sugar is high in calories, carrots are low in calories. Maine is cold, Florida is hot. city life is stimulating, country life is tranquil.

Set I Filler Sentences And then versus but first 1. He stopped at the stop sign, and then he crossed the street. 2. He crossed the street, but first he stopped at the stop sign. 3. She asked for the teacher's permission, and then she left the classroom. 4. She left the classroom, but first she asked for the teacher's permission. 5. He turned off the engine, and then he pumped the gas. 6. He pumped the gas, but first he turned off the engine. 7. He put on his mask, and then he sprayed the pesticide.

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8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

He sprayed the pesticide, but first he put on his mask. She got the umbrella, and then she went out into the rain. She went out into the rain, but first she got the umbrella. He went to a small college, and then he entered Yale law school. He entered Yale law school, but first he went to a small college.

So versus for 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

The bus didn't come, so I was late. I was late, for the bus didn't come. She was very tired, so she went to bed early. She went to bed early, for she was very tired. He won the award, so he was very happy. He was very happy, for he won the award. The sun was very hot, so he took off his coat. He took off his coat, for the sun was very hot. Professor Smith was out of town, so the class was canceled. The class was canceled, for Professor Smith was out of town. The speech was boring, so I left it in the middle. I left the speech in the middle, for it was boring.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

She Her She She The The The The She She The The

But studied very hard, but her grades were low. grades were low, but she studied very hard. went to the restaurant, but she didn't order the food. didn't order the food, but she went to the restaurant. battery was strong, but the car wouldn't start. car wouldn't start, but the battery was strong. long-distance runner didn't train, but he won the gold medal. long-distance runner won the gold medal, but he didn't train. ate a lot of rich food, but she didn't get fat. didn't get fat, but she ate a lot of rich food. snow was heavy, but the traffic was running as usual. traffic was running as usual, but the snow was heavy.

Set H Filler Sentences

Before 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Before Before Before Before Before Before

he started on the trip, he had his car checked. she went to bed, she took two sleeping pills. he went to change the bulb, he turned off the light. she installed the rug, she painted the ceiling. she found the solution, she tried many times. I decided to take this class, I consulted the instructor.

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Unt/l 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Until it got totally dark, they had been working outside. Until I woke him up for the supper, he had been sleeping all afternoon. Until everyone else left the room, she refused to tell me the truth. Until the firemen came to extinguish the fire, it continued to burn. Until his stomach ached, he kept on eating. Until she went to elementary school in America, she couldn't speak English.

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French, L.A. (1988). The development of children's understanding of because and so. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 45, 262-279. French, L.A., & Brown, A.L (1976). Comprehension of before and after in logical and arbitrary sentences. Journal of Child Language, 4, 247-256. Ooodz, N.S. (1982). Is before really easier to understand than after? Child Development, 53, 822825. Greenberg, J.H. (1963). Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In J.H. Greenberg (Ed.), Universals of language. Cambridge, MA: M.1.T. Press. Hatch, E. (1971). The young child's comprehension of time connectives. Child Development, 42, 2111-2113. Holmes, V.M. (1973). Order of main and subordinate clauses in sentence perception. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12, 185-293. Jarvella, R.J., & Herman, S.J. (1972). Clause structure of sentences and speech processing. Perception and Psychophysics, 11,381-383. Jespersen, O. (1964). Essentials of English grammar. University, AL: University of Alabama Press. Johnson, H.L. (1975). The meaning of before and after for preschool children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 19, 88-99. Jou, J. (1981). The influence of the native language on the bias to using temporal-causal clause order in English adverbial complex sentences. Unpublished manuscript. Katz, E.W., & Brent, S.B. (1968). Understanding connectives. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 7, 501-509. Opacic, G. (1973). Natural order in cognizing and clause order in the sentencing of conjoined expressions. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana. Osgood, C.E. (1971). Where do sentences come from? In D.D. Steinberg & L.A. Jakobovits (Eds.), Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics, and psyehology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osgood, C.E. (1980). Lectures on language performance. New York: Springer-Verlag. Scholnick, E.K., & Wing, C.S. (1982). The pragmatics of subordinating conjunctions: A second look. Journal of Child Language, 9, 46l--479. Sridhar, S. (1980). Cognitive determinants of lingu#tic structure: A cross-linguistic experimental study of sentence production. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana. Townsend, D.J., & Bever, T.G. (1978). Interclause relations and clausal processing. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17, 509-522. Townsend, D.J., & Ravelo, N. (1980). The development of complex sentence processing strategies. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 29, 60-73. Zandvoort, R.W (1966). A handbook of English grammar. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.