Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Quotational constructions as in 'This phenomenon is called “moonbow”' involve predicates like call and are used to introduce a lexicalized word, i.e. “moonbow”, to the addressee. The name of a lexicalized concept is mentioned which is why we refer to this type of sentential construction as a name-mentioning construction (NMC). Although there is substantial philosophical research on the notion of quotation, empirical evidence is sparse. In our empirical investigation, we use eye-tracking data to look into the nature of the processing of quotation marks in NMCs. The results of Linear Mixed Models indicate that there is no statistically significant difference for early eye-tracking measures, but a significant effect for the expression in the target Interest Area Dwell Time. Words enclosed in quotation marks are processed longer than target words without quotes. We argue that our findings suggest the involvement of higher cognitive processes in the processing of quotes.