A central component of sentence comprehension is prediction in which listeners and readers anticipate impending words. This prediction takes place as the sentence unfolds, indicating an incremental view of sentence processing based heavily upon prediction (Tyler & Marslen-Wilson, 1977). Additionally, the brain organizes semantic information such that words whose referents share semantic features are partially activated (McRae et al., 1997). Therefore, if we predict a word incorrectly, our language processing system is better equipped to deal with the unpredicted word if it shares features with the predicted word (Federmeier & Kutas, 1999). This is often tested by using high-constraint sentences with high cloze probability. However, the common single sentence paradigm does not allow for multiple experiments or better understanding prediction of semantically related words as there are very few plausible endings to a single sentence with high contextual constraint. A two-sentence design with a heavily contextual first sentence and a carrier phrase that can feasibly end with any number of words opens the door for researchers to add many different plausible sentence endings, thereby adding more adaptability into the experimental design while maintaining a high cloze probability.

The aim of the present study was to extend this contribution by expanding the existing database of high-constraint, high cloze probability sentences to designs with two sentences, and is especially useful for experiments that examine featural similarity in greater depth. In total, 120 high-constraint sentences were validated and normed.