A influência da canonicidade de linking sintático-semântico na construção do significado

Abstract

The aim of this work was to investigate to what extent the canonicalcorrespondence (canonical linking) between the syntactic structureand thematic roles of the direct objects, subjects and prepositionalphrases affect the construction of meanings of the texts. In a secondlevel of analysis, the effects of canonical linking were investigated ininteraction with processing capacity and prior knowledge.Firstly, two preliminary tests were applied: a test of span reading toclassify the readers according to high, middle and low processing capacityand a test to measure the reader’s prior knowledge about the texts (thefunctioning of a washing machine and the functioning of a scanner).The results revealed that canonical linking, isolated or in interactionwith the other two factors, have a systematic effect; however, its effectsare diversified in the comprehension of the direct objects, subjectsand prepositional phrases.These results suggest, among other things, the existence ofsimilarities and differences in the processing of these sentenceconstituents. A major symmetry in the processing of the direct objectsand subjects in comparison with prepositioned phrases was observed.