Abstract
This paper discusses ways of determining whether the human parser is serial maintaining at most,
one structural interpretation at each parse state, or whether it is parallel, maintaining more than
one structural interpretation in at least some circumstances. We make four points. The first two
counterclaims made by Lewis (2000): (1) that the availability of alternative structures should not
vary as a function of the disambiguating material in some ranked parallel models; and (2) that parallel models predict a slow down during the ambiguous region for more syntactically ambiguous
structures. Our other points concern potential methods for seeking experimental evidence relevant
to the serial/parallel question. We discuss effects of the plausibility of a secondary structure in the
ambiguous region (Pearlmutter & Mendelsohn, 1999) and suggest examining the distribution of
reaction times in the disambiguating region.
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