What can readers ’ eye movement tell us about written language processing?

In my talk I will review evidence on how eye fixation patterns registered during reading can be used to study online written language processing. Evidence comes from studies investigating word identification and sentence parsing in Finnish – a morphologically rich language. The reviewed studies focus on morphological complexity, morphological agreement, and verb transitivity. First, data are presented demonstrating that long compound words are identified via their constituents, while short compound words are processed holistically. A second set of studies shows that morphological agreement in modifier–head noun phrases facilitates their processing. The effect is delayed in nature, which (in combination with other evidence) suggests that facilitation operates at the level of syntactic integration. Third, verb transitivity has an immediate effect on processing of verbs, when either transitivity is morphologically marked or the verb is frequent. Finally, evidence is reviewed that demonstrates an effect of morphological complexity and density in the processing of complex verb constructions, but only when the complex and less complex constructions are equally frequent. This is not the case when the complex construction is more frequent, suggesting that structural frequency can override a morphological complexity effect. In sum, these data demonstrate the usefulness of the eye-tracking method in studying online written language comprehension