Lexical access in sentences: The processing of phrasal verbs

This study is concerned with lexical access during sentence comprehension, particularly, the on-line access of phrasal verbs. Three experiments are described with the goal of determining which meanings (literal, figurative) are accessed during sentence comprehension and the role of sentence context during phrasal verb access. In these experiments, phrasal verbs are presented to subjects auditorily in either a figurative or literal context. A cross-modal semantic priming technique is used to determine which meanings of the phrasal verbs are accessed. Literal interpretations of phrasal verbs (verb-particle combinations) are accessed in the immediate temporal vicinity of the base verb, this activation continues through to the access of the particle, and disappears downstream when the direct object is encountered, independently of sentence context. Figurative interpretations of phrasal verbs are not so clear-cut. When sentence context is biased toward literal context, figurative meanings are not accessed at the end of the phrasal verb unit. However, when sentence context is figurative-biased, figurative access is observed both at the end of the phrasal verb unit and downstream at the direct object.