Data, Materials, and Appendix

Sentence comprehension involves both semantic and syntactic processing. Previous evidence has demonstrated the relatively weaker role of syntax compared with semantics in sentence comprehension. This study further identifies syntax’s weaker role: its underutilization, which diminishes the cognitive synergy during comprehension. In this current study, an empirical experiment comprising six paired questions with statistical analysis is conducted. The experiment demonstrates that subjects show inferior comprehension performance on semantically ambiguous but syntactically unambiguous sentences compared to their paired semantically and syntactically unambiguous sentences. The results reveal that Chinese speakers underutilize syntactic processing when comprehending English sentences. This study then elucidates three categories of parsing methods: syntactic-clue-based parsing, semantical trial-and-error-based parsing, and syntactic trial-and-error-based parsing. Additionally, it identifies two categories of parsing underutilization for sentence interpretation: partial underutilization and complete underutilization of syntactic processing in sentence comprehension. Further exploration of the reasons behind partial and complete underutilization led to the identification of trial and error as a contributing factor. Consequently, this study provides empirical evidence for the weaker role of syntactic processing compared to semantic processing in sentence comprehension. Moreover, it lays a strong foundation for the development of an innovative parsing method designed to fully integrate syntactic processing into sentence comprehension, thereby enhancing cognitive synergy and the level of English sentence comprehension for Chinese speakers.

句子理解同时涉及语义处理与句法处理。既往研究证据表明，在句子理解过程中，句法的作用相对弱于语义。本研究进一步明确了句法的弱势地位：句法处理的使用不足会削弱理解过程中的认知协同。本研究开展了一项包含六道配对问题并辅以统计分析的实证实验。实验结果显示，相较于语义与句法均无歧义的对照句子，受试者在语义歧义但句法无歧义的句子上的理解表现更差。该结果揭示：中文使用者在理解英语句子时，存在句法处理使用不足的情况。本研究随后阐释了三类句法分析方法：基于句法线索的句法分析、基于语义试错的句法分析，以及基于句法试错的句法分析。此外，本研究界定了句子理解中两类句法处理使用不足的类型：部分使用不足与完全使用不足。进一步探究这两类使用不足的成因后，本研究发现试错机制是其中一个影响因素。综上，本研究为“句子理解中句法处理的作用弱于语义处理”这一结论提供了实证依据。同时，本研究为开发创新性句法分析方法奠定了坚实基础——该方法旨在将句法处理完全融入句子理解流程，从而提升中文使用者的英语句子理解水平与认知协同效果。