Production of multiword referential phrases: Inclusion of over-specifying information and a preference for modifier-noun phrases

We examined the underlying psycholinguistic and cognitive factors that give rise to
the production of multiword expressions. For example, if a story describes a woman
buying a dog with blue fur, will people include the color of the dog when referring
to the animal and, if so, in what syntactic form? In the experiment, participants read
short stories that contained a concept that was presented as either a modifier-noun
phrase (e.g., the blue dog) or full phrase (e.g., the dog that was blue). We also varied
whether the property being highlighted was normal (e.g., brown) or distinctive (e.g.,
blue) for the head noun concept (e.g., dog). We found that participants are more
likely to include distinctive properties than normal properties when referring to
the concept. Although the selection of a syntactic form was partially influenced
by the form of the information in the story, there was a strong overall bias toward
using a modifier-noun phrase structure.