The interplay of animacy and thematic role in structural persistence

Models of human sentence production often propose a clear distinction between syntactic and semantic processes. We examined this assumption by investigating the interaction between animacy and thematic roles in active–passive structural priming. Study 1 found that the active or passive structure of a preceding sentence (prime) influenced structural choice in a subsequent sentence (target). This priming effect increased when the prime and target sentences shared the same animacy features in their thematic roles, which affected the persistence of the prime subject’s animacy. While verb repetition enhanced active–passive priming, the persistence of the prime subject’s animacy was not affected by lexical repetition. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that repeated animacy features in the thematic roles increase the likelihood of preserving both the thematic role order of the prime (e.g., maintaining the agent-first order in It was the thief that chased the lorry) and its argument structure (e.g., assigning the agent as the subject) in English cleft constructions. In Japanese declarative sentences, where particles indicate the sentential topic, the repeated animacy features strengthened argument structure persistence but not the persistence of thematic role order. These findings suggest that thematic role animacy repetition boosts structural priming by reinforcing thematic emphasis.