The study concerns grammaticality as defined by degree of disruption of Scott's (1969) subject--verb-object-qualifier (SVOQ) sentence. Experiment I demonstrated that use of ambiguous qualifiers such that the meaning of sentences of SQVO or SVQO form could be re-interpreted caused relatively high grammatical judgments, whereas use of non-ambiguous qualifiers depressed judgments. Experiment II (using English words) and Experiment III (using inflected nonsense roots) showed that Scott's index of disruption of SVQO kernels predicts the production of grammatical and non-grammatical patterns by native speakers of English. The results are discussed in terms of Fries' distinction between structural and lexical meaning.
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