Ditransitive Verbs and Quantifier Scope Ambiguity: what does sentence processing tell us about the nature of alternating verbs?

Abstract

Ditransitive alternating verbs are a class of verbs which can take two objects as their arguments and cause an alternation of the two syntactic frames (e.g., He sprayed paint onto the wall/He sprayed the wall with paint). These constructions pose challenges with respect to their analysis: whether the two patterns involved in the alternation are derived from the same underlying structure or not. The main objective of this research is to shed light upon the structural composition of locative alternation through the phenomenon of quantifier scope ambiguity. To achieve this aim, we analyse the principles that account for the disambiguation of scopally ambiguous sentences and surface processing of scopally frozen sentences. While seeking to provide empirical evidence, we conduct an experimental study, in which we test the way L1 English speakers and L1 Russian speakers process both ambiguous and unambiguous sentences. The results obtained in the course of the experiment showed that English and Russian native speakers give preference to both surface and inverse readings for ambiguous sentences and surface reading only for unambiguous sentences. Moreover, a more thorough analysis of the obtained data indicated that for ambiguous sentences the mean score for the surface interpretation preference was higher when compared to inverse interpretation in both Russian and English. These findings led us to conclude that in both English and Russian the two alternating frames in locative alternation should be analysed derivationally and perceived as sharing the same underlying structure. Yet, certain deviating results and the limitations involved in the study urge us to suggest the necessity for future research, involving a broader range of tested verbs, a higher number of informants and expanding the study to other languages.