Two experiments indicated that sentence verification times were significantly longer when a discrepancy between target sentence and context was in the syntactic presupposition, rather than in the assertion. Findings are best explained by a structural hypothesis, not by strategies designed to locate given and new information. (Author/CP)

An experiment was conducted to determine whether the deep structure or the surface structure clause is more important as a speech planning unit, and whether syntactic decisions are made during sentence production. Results were discussed in relation to previous studies of pausing and speech disruption. (Author/CTM)

The research investigated the time course of integrative semantic processing during sentence processing. Reading time was measured on sentences containing an NP composed of an adjective and a noun whose combined meaning was plausible or anomalous (Experiment 1) or was typical or atypical (Experiment 2). The noun in the NP was either plural or…

Reaction time to detect a phoneme target in a sentence was faster when the target-containing word formed part of the semantic focus of the sentence. Sentence understanding was facilitated by rapid identification of focused information. Active search for accented words can be interpreted as a search for semantic focus. (Author/RD)

The speed at which sentences with various kinds of violations could be rejected was studied. Compatible with the sequential model was the finding that noun-verb and adjective-noun double violations did not result in shorter reaction times than noun-verb single violations, although double violations were judged less acceptable. (Author/RD)