Efeitos de Garden Path na leitura de sentenças temporariamente ambíguas apresentadas como enjambements

Abstract

This work of research aims at analysing if the type of segmentation of poetry, namely, the type of enjambment, influences processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences, either causing or not the Garden Path effect (Frazier, 1979; Frazier; Fodor, 1978). Specifically, two types of enjambments were analysed: the prospective, which happens when it is clear for the reader that the phrase is not yet complete by the end of the verse, and the retrospective, which happens when the reader believes that the phrase is complete by the end of the verse (Golomb, 1979). To that end, two reading test were conducted using an eye-tracking device. For the experiments, temporarily ambiguous sentences of the V1-NP-V2 type were used, being presented as poetry, forming either a prospective enjambment or a retrospective enjambment (Golomb, 1979). As hypotheses, it was believed that the prospective enjambment would not cause the Garden Path effect, and that the retrospective enjambment would cause an effect even stronger than that in the prose condition, and the results confirm these hypotheses