THE ADVANTAGE OF ACCESSIBILITY OF FIRST-MENTIONED PARTICIPANTS IN CHINESE SENTENCES
句子先提述的参与者在可提取性上的优势现象

The relations between mentioned order and accessibility of Chinese sentence constituents was explored. Five experiments were conducted and the results were demonstrated as follows:(1) first-mentioned participants were easier to be accessed than second-mentioned participants, mentioned order obviously affected accessibility of the participants.(2) The advantage of first-mentioned participants was relevant to the way of sentence presentation. When the words of the sentence were presented in a sequential way, there was no obvious difference of accessibility between first-and second-mentioned participants or the difference was not very obvious; when the sentence was presented in a simultaneous way. this advantage of first-mentioned participants was very obvious.(3) Under the condition of sequential presentation, the advantage of first-mentioned participants was dependent on the interval between each sentence and its probe word.(4) Under the condition of sequential presentation subjects responded to noun-participants faster than to name-participants, and they responded to patient-participants faster than agent-participants, but this difference disappeared under simultaneous presentation.(5) The order of mention had effect not only on accessibility of sentence participants, but also on accessibility of participants action; first-mentioned action was more accessible.