different word order variation. The study focused on whether speakers and writers produce the word of heavy NP shift for their own benefit, or if they take into account the needs of the listener or reader. In this study, two verb classes were compared to test the choice of early and late commitment (points when the speaker has 'committed' themselves to producing a VP immediately followed by NP and PP constituents). The study examined transitive verbs, which require an NP object (e.g. bring, carry, make, put, etc.) and prepositional or intransitive verbs that do not require an NP object (e.g. add, build, call, draw, leave, etc.). Example of utterance with transitive verb: Pat brought a box with a ribbon around it →to the party. Pat brought →to the party a box with a ribbon around it. Example of utterance with intransitive verb: Pat wrote something about Chris→ on the blackboard. Pat wrote on the blackboard →something about Chris. The arrows indicate where the speaker commits to producing a VP with an NP and PP following. They also indicate where the listener is sure the VP will contain a NP and PP. After analyzing written and spoken corpus data it was found that heavy NP shift is more common with intransitive verbs. This suggests using heavy NP shift word order with intransitive verbs allows the producer more time to decide whether they will include a direct object or not. This reduces the amount of planning needed and gives the speaker more time to articulate their thoughts. Having this extra time should in turn reduce the chance of the producer having to correct or abort an utterance. Notes References Hawkins, John A. A performance theory of order and constituency. Vol. 73. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Arnold, J.E., Losongco, A., Wasow, T. and Ginstrom, R., 2000. Heaviness vs. newness: The effects of structural complexity and discourse status on constituent ordering. Language, pp.28-55. Kayne, R.S., 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax (No. 25). mit Press. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G.N. and Svartvik, J., 1972. A grammar of contemporary English. Ross, J. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. Ph.D. Dissertation, MIT. Wasow, T. and Arnold, J., 2003. Post-verbal constituent ordering in English. Topics in English Linguistics, 43, pp.119-154. Wasow, T., 1997. End-weight from the speaker's perspective. Journal of Psycholinguistic research, 26(3), pp.347-361. Yamashita, H. and Chang, F., 2001. “Long before short” preference in the production