ABSTRACT

A structural priming study examined whether the mapping between grammatical functions (e.g. subject) and thematic roles (e.g. agent) persists across utterances. Specifically, we tested whether native Cantonese speakers are more likely to produce a standard subject–verb–object (SVO) active or a standard passive sentence after repeating an active sentence in object–subject–verb (OSV) order where the direct object (i.e. patient) is grammatically marked as a topic. Such Topic-OSV and standard active sentences share the same agent–subject and patient–direct object mapping, but they differ in all other important aspects including constituent structure, information structure, and linear thematic role order. In contrast, Topic-OSV and passive sentences only share information structure and thematic role order. The results demonstrated that Topic-OSV prime sentences primed SVO actives rather than passives, suggesting that grammatical function–thematic role mapping is a major source of structural priming. We thus argue that our sentence representations encode grammatical functions.

摘要

一项结构启动研究检查了语法功能（例如主语）和主题角色（例如代理）之间的映射是否在话语中持续存在。具体来说，我们测试了以粤语为母语的人在以宾语 - 主语 - 动词（OSV）顺序重复主动句后是否更有可能产生标准的主语 - 动词 - 宾语（SVO）主动句或标准被动句，其中直接宾语（即患者）在语法上被标记为一个主题。这样的 Topic-OSV 和标准主动句共享相同的代理-主语和患者-直接宾语映射，但它们在所有其他重要方面都不同，包括成分结构、信息结构和线性主题角色顺序。相比之下，Topic-OSV 和被动句仅共享信息结构和主题角色顺序。结果表明，Topic-OSV 主句启动了 SVO 主动句而不是被动句，这表明语法功能-主位角色映射是结构启动的主要来源。因此，我们认为我们的句子表示编码了语法功能。