| Summary: | <p> The primary goal of this dissertation is to characterize the relative strength of two of the influences on the parser’s behavior during ambiguity resolution: coreference dependency formation and verb frame preference. I find that coreference dependency formation exerts a stronger influence on the parser than does verb frame preference, even when verb frame preference is maximized in transitively biased frames. </p><p> Previous studies have shown local attachment bias initially directs the parser to an embedded object analysis in sentences like (1), in which the DP <i>Annie’s melody</i> is locally ambiguous between the embedded object (EO)/matrix subject (MS) analyses (Ferreira and Henderson, 1990). </p><p> (1) Whenever she was trying to casually hum Annie’s melody was beautiful. </p><p> Additionally, (1) contains a cataphoric pronoun <i> she</i> which triggers an active search for an antecedent, whereby the parser seeks the antecedent only in grammatically sanctioned positions, such as where the antecedent is not c-commanded by the pronoun (Kazanina et al., 2007; van Gompel and Liversedge, 2003). In (1), the closest potential antecedent is <i>Annie.</i> However, it can be the antecedent only if the DP that contains it is analyzed as the MS, thus outside the whenever-clause and not c-commanded by <i>she.</i> A bias toward an early cataphoric dependency formation could lead the parser to analyze the ambiguous DP as the MS. In (1), there is a bias toward a MS analysis from the antecedent search in addition to a bias toward the local attachment EO analysis. </p><p> I find that, regardless of the transitivity bias of the verb in the position of <i>hums,</i> the parser forms a dependency between the pronoun <i> she</i> and <i>Annie.</i> This indicates that dependency formation can supersede verb frame preferences and any default preference the parser may have toward local attachment (Phillips and Gibson, 1997). Moreover, I also observe effects attributable to both the MS and EO parses. This suggests that the parser builds both alternatives and maintains them in parallel. From this, I conclude that the parser prioritizes information from an ongoing dependency search over lexical properties during ambiguity resolution.</p>
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