Sidestepping Garden Paths: Assessing the Contributions of Syntax, Semantics, and Plausibility in Resolving Ambiguities.

Explores the prediction of the referential theory, which maintains that the relative complexity of discourse representations plays a key role in determining the perceiver's immediate parsing preferences. Results indicate that semantic/referential principles are applied immediately in an online ambiguity resolution and preempt general world knowledge. (62 references) (Author/CK)