Garden-path sentence

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Revision as of 15:48, 25 July 2010 by Wohlgemuth (talk | contribs)
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A garden path sentence is one which leads initially to to a incorrect interpretation.

Perhaps the most famous example of this is:

  • the horse ran past the barn fell

The presence of the word 'fell' makes us go back and re-evaluate the sentence. This demonstrates the immediacy of interpretation when processing sentences.