everything is good here (please come home) (nothingsong) wrote in linguaphiles,
everything is good here (please come home)
nothingsong
linguaphiles

the garden path effect

I'm doing a small research project this semester in my syntax course on the garden-path effect. Basically, they are sentences that are perfectly grammatical but fluent speakers have difficulty understanding them on the first try - sometimes because of ambiguous word choice ("The old man the boat," in which "old" is a noun and "man" is a verb) but more often because of an ambiguous embedded clause ("As Anna dressed the baby spit up," in which "the baby" is first thought to be the object of "dressed").

I have a decent amount of research on English, but I was wondering if anybody knows of this effect in other languages? I'm sure it happens, but I'm not sure where to start looking. Any ideas or references would be hugely appreciated.
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  • Anatomy of a "CUNT"

    The word CUNT is not simple, but compound. It consists of two parts. However, first of all, let's get rid of prejudices. The word CUNT is as…

  • The Touchy Subject

    Apparently, English etymologists are ticklish. That's why they don't want to touch on some sensitive topics. And very important ones. Let's take…

  • Nose as a primarium of knowledge

    No one would have challenged my title if I had added "for dogs and other animals". However, I am writing about the human nose. After all, the…