This article examined whether semantic indeterminacy plays a role in comprehension of complex structures such as object relative clauses. Study 1 used a gated sentence completion task to assess which alternative interpretations are dominant as the relative clause unfolds; Study 2 compared reading times in object relative clauses containing different animacy configurations to unambiguous passive controls; and Study 3 related completion data and reading data. The results showed that comprehension difficulty was modulated by animacy configuration and voice (active vs. passive). These differences were well correlated with the availability of alternative interpretations as the relative clause unfolds, as revealed by the completion data. In contrast to approaches arguing that comprehension difficulty stems from syntactic complexity, these results suggest that semantic indeterminacy is a major source of comprehension difficulty in object relative clauses. Results are consistent with constraint-based approaches to ambiguity resolution and bring new insights into previously identified sources of difficulty.

中文翻译：

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宾语关系从句中的语义不确定性

本文研究了语义不确定性是否在理解复杂结构（如宾语关系从句）中起作用。研究 1 使用门控句子完成任务来评估哪些替代解释在关系从句展开时占主导地位；研究 2 比较了包含不同活力配置的宾语关系从句与明确被动控制的阅读时间；和Study 3相关的完成数据和阅读数据。结果表明，理解难度受动画配置和语音（主动与被动）的调节。正如完成数据所揭示的那样，随着关系从句展开，这些差异与替代解释的可用性密切相关。与认为理解困难源于句法复杂性的方法相反，这些结果表明语义不确定是宾语关系从句理解困难的主要来源。结果与基于约束的歧义解决方法一致，并为先前确定的困难来源带来了新的见解。