How specific are linguistic structures? Mathematical priming on relative clause attachment in French
Abstract
The specificity of linguistic structures has been a central question in research related to questions on language universals and learnability. Scheepers et al. (2011) found that calculations like 76-(6+2)×2 vs. 76-6+2×2 respectively correspond to high and low attachment relative clause constructions. We report results from two production experiments further exploring the nature of mathematical priming on language. Contrary to Scheepers et al. (2011) and other previous studies, our results rather support relative clause attachment as association to thematic domains, as suggested for example by construal theory.
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