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Garden-path sentence

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A garden path sentence is a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that a reader's most likely interpretation will be incorrect; however, the reader is lured into a parse that turns out to be a dead end. Garden path sentences are used in psycholinguistics to illustrate the fact that when human beings read, they process language one word at a time. "Garden path" refers to the saying "to be led down the garden path", meaning "to be misled". According to one current psycholinguistic theory, as a person reads a garden path sentence, the reader builds up a structure of meaning one word at a time. At some point, it becomes clear to the reader that the next word or phrase cannot be incorporated into the structure built up thus far; it is inconsistent with the path they have been led down. Garden path sentences are less common in spoken communication because the prosodic qualities of speech (such as the stress and the tone of voice) often serve to resolve ambiguities in the written text.

This phenomenon is discussed at length by Stanley Fish in his book Surprised by Sin. He argues that incremental parsing of sentences needs to be addressed by literary theorists. He also covers this topic in several essays from his book Is there a text in this Class?

By language type

Garden path sentences mostly appear in analytic languages, where word order is heavily relied upon to establish the grammatical case and function in a sentence. Fusional languages, which establish grammatical function in a sentence through inflection and other types of relational synthesis mostly avoid this type of ambiguity because the relationship of a word to the surrounding words is marked by the way the word is modified.

Examples

  • The horse raced past the barn fell.
    The reader usually starts to parse this as an ordinary active intransitive sentence, but stumbles when reaching the word "fell." At this point, the reader is forced to backtrack and look for other possible structures. It may take some rereading to realize that "raced past the barn" is in fact a reduced relative clause with a passive participle, implying that "fell" is the main verb. The correct reading is then: "The horse – (that was) raced past the barn – fell."
    This sentence can be parsed in other ways as well: A British reader accustomed to "fell" being a noun (meaning "mountain") may reach the end and still treat "raced" as the verb and "barn fell" as "the fell by or at the barn". Fell is also an adjective that means "dreadful" or "wicked". Chiefly archaically and poetically, adjectives may follow their noun leading to the somewhat nonsensical, "The horse raced past the dreadful barn."
    The example hinges on the ambiguity of the lexical category of the word "raced": it can be either a past-tense verb or a passive participle. Compare to an unambiguous sentence with the same syntactic structure: The car driven past the barn crashed. Unlike "raced," the verb "driven" is unambiguously passive, thus eliminating the garden path reading.

Occasionally, a second phrase causes the reinterpretation of meaning (see paraprosdokian):

Other examples of garden path sentences are:

Sentence Initial likely partial parse Final parse
The old man the boat. The man, who is old... The boat is manned by the old.
The man whistling tunes pianos. The man who is whistling melodies... The whistling man tunes pianos.
The cotton clothing is made of grows in Mississippi. The clothing, which is made of cotton, is made of... The cotton that clothing is made of grows in Mississippi.
The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families. The houses (meaning buildings or families), which are complicated, got married to... Single and married soldiers and their families are housed in the complex.
The author wrote the novel was likely to be a best-seller. The author composed the novel... The author wrote that the novel in question was likely to be a best-seller.
The tomcat curled up on the cushion seemed friendly. The tomcat curled itself up on the cushion... The tomcat that was curled up on the cushion seemed friendly.
The man returned to his house was happy. The man came back to his house... Returned to his house, the man was happy.
The government plans to raise taxes were defeated. The government is planning to raise taxes... The government's plans to raise taxes were defeated.
The sour drink from the ocean. The drink that was sour... Those that are sour drink from the ocean.

See also

References

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