An Effect of the Definite Article on the Salience of a Noun

Subjects were asked to correct the meaning of semantically anomalous sentences in which a noun, either the subject or object, or the verb could be considered anomalous. Increased specificity of reference led to an increase in the salience of the nouns in the meaning of the sentences. A noun was significantly more likely to be retained in the corrections and the verb considered anomalous if that noun was definite than if it was indefinite. Subject nouns were also more likely to be retained than were object nouns when they broke the selection restrictions of the verb. This finding is discussed in terms of other studies showing the importance of the subject noun in sentence comprehension.