data and material

Syntactic processing is widely believed to aid in sentence comprehension. However, parsing often requires a prior sentence interpretation in practice. This circular logic indicates the limited role of syntactic processing in sentence understanding, prompting us to question whether sentence comprehension necessitates parsing. This study conducts two empirical experiments with statistical analysis, revealing that many Chinese speakers do not heavily rely on syntactic processing to comprehend English sentences. It elucidates three states in which parsing is utilized for sentence interpretation: the attachment of syntactic processing to sentence comprehension, the partial detachment of syntactic processing from sentence comprehension, and the complete detachment of syntactic processing from sentence comprehension. The study explores the reasons behind partial and complete detachment, thereby establishing a robust foundation for the development of an innovative parsing method to enhance sentence comprehension skills.