Classes of Sentences with Garden-Path Effect in Persian: Reasons and Arguments

Abstract

This study attempted to answer the following questions: "Which constructions in Persian correspond to the conventional definition of sentences with the garden path effect? Moreover, based on the ideas of sentence processing, how these constructions can be classified in Persian?” Firstly, this paper described garden path sentences in English and introduced theoretical concepts and patterns related to sentence processing. After the examination of ambiguity and more particularly structural ambiguity, it was concluded that the Persian language has structures that match the English definition of the garden path sentences. Furthermore, structural ambiguity can also be considered as a type of sentence with the garden path effect. On the whole, Persian garden path sentences can be divided into two types: those with one correct grammatical reading and those with more than one reading due to syntactic or semantic reasons. Using the ideas from the field of sentence processing, it appears that the effective factors causing the garden path effect in Persian sentences are similar to those that yield this effect in English sentences. Finally, we argued for the importance of speech prosody and punctuation to eliminate ambiguities from written sentences.Keywords: syntactic processing, Garden path sentences, ambiguity, punctuation, prosody

Keywords

• syntactic processing
• garden path sentences
• ambiguity
• punctuation marks
• prosody