Coreference processing and levels of analysis in objectrelative constructions: Demonstration of antecedent reactivation with the cross-modal priming paradigm

This paper is concerned with two related issues in sentence processing-one methodo-logical and one theoretical. Methodologically, it provides an unconfounded test of the ability of the cross-modal lexical priming task, when used appropriately, to provide detailed evidence about the time-course of antecedent reactivation during sentence proc-essing. Theoretically, it provides a study of the nature of the representation that is examined when a reference-seeking element is linked to its antecedent during the proc-essing of object-relative clause constructions. In these studies, subjects heard sentences which contained a lexical ambiguity placed in a strong biasing context. In one study this ambiguous word was the "moved " or 'fronted " object of the verb in an object-relative construction. A cross-modal lexical priming (CMLP) naming task was used to determine whether one or more of the meanings of the ambiguity are activated at three temporally distinct points during the sentence: (1) immediately after the lexical ambiguity (Study 1); (2) a later point that was 700 milliseconds before the offset of the main verb (Study 2); (3) immediately after this main verb (at the gap in this filler-gap construction) (Study 2). The probes in the CMLP task were controlled for potential confounds. The results demonstrate the following: At Test Point 1, all meanings of the ambiguity were activated; at Test Point 2, neither meaning of the ambiguity was (still) activated; at Test Point 3, only a single (context-relevant) meaning of the ambiguity was re activated. It is concluded that an underlying (deep; non-surface-level) memorial representation of the sentence is examined during the process of linking an antecedent to a structural position requiring a referent, and that the CMLP task provides an unbiased measure of this reactivation. The authors gratefully acknowledg the contributions of an anonymous reviewer for helpful suggestions and changes in this paper, and the support of a fellowship to the firs