Garden path sentence

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Garden path sentences are used in psycholinguistics to illustrate that human beings process language one word at a time. The name comes from the saying "to be led down the garden path" meaning "to be misled". The classic example is:

"The horse raced past the barn fell."

The reader usually starts to parse this as an ordinary active intransitive sentence, but stumbles upon reaching the word "fell." At this point, the reader is forced to backtrack and look for other structures. It may take some rereading and/or relistening to realize that "raced past the barn" is in fact a reduced relative clause with a passive participle, implying that "fell" is the main verb. The correct reading is then:

"The horse (that was raced past the barn) fell."

This example hinges on the ambiguity of the lexical category of the word "raced": it can be either a past-tense verb or a passive participle. Note that there is no ambiguity for some other verbs, even when the sentence structure is similar:

"The car driven past the barn crashed."

But, a British reader accustomed to "fell" being a noun may reach the end and still treat "raced" as the verb and "barn fell" as "the fell by or at the barn".

1 Garden-path jokes
2 Other examples
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Garden-path jokes

A number of jokes depend on the garden path effect. For instance, "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." The first sentence starts the hearer firmly down the garden path, priming for a particular parsing of the second sentence which would parallel the first. The joke hinges on the ambiguities of "fruit" (independent noun or modifier of "flies"), "flies" (singular verb or plural noun), and "like" (preposition or plural verb).

The old Vaudevillian joke often quoted by E. E. Cummings, "Would you hit a woman with a baby? No I'd hit her with a brick," uses the same effect.

What has four wheels and flies? (The answer, "a garbage truck", makes little sense until one realizes that "flies" is a noun referring to the insect rather than a verb indicating what the garbage truck does. "What has flies and four wheels?" resolves the ambiguity.)

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got in my pyjamas I don't know." —Groucho Marx [1]

[edit] Other examples

The man who hunts ducks out on weekends. (The hunter ducks out on weekends.)
The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi. (The cotton of which clothing is usually made is grown in Mississippi.)
Fat people eat accumulates. (The fat eaten by people accumulates.)
The complex houses married and single students and their families. (Married and single students and their families are housed in the complex.)
If you wish to shoot the attendant will be happy to load your gun. (The attendant will gladly load your gun if you wish to shoot.)
The prime number few. (The prime are few in number.)
The old man the boat. (The boat is manned by the old.)
I convinced her children are noisy. (I convinced her that children are noisy.)
The player kicked the ball kicked the ball. (The player to whom the ball was kicked kicked the ball.)