Empty Categories in Sentence Processing

Empty Categories in Sentence Processing
Author: Sam Featherston
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2001
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027227645

Annotation Featherston (Eberhard-Karls-U., Tubingen) presents the results of three experiments on the role of empty categories--phonetically null place-holders for locally absent constituents--in sentence processing. The experiments used probe recognition, sentence matching, and event-related potentials, as well as self-paced reading. Coverage includes a discussion of the predictions of both Principles and Parameters Theory and Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Empty Categories in Sentence Processing

Empty Categories in Sentence Processing
Author: Sam Featherston
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2001-09-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027298246

This book reports a research program into one of the most controversial questions in the syntax — processing interface: The behavior of the parser at gap positions. While the work done is largely experimental, the results are analyzed both for their relevance to sentence processing and for their implications for competing syntactic frameworks. In particular the differing predictions of PPT and HPSG for structures with dislocated constituents are tested for their empirical adequacy. The author addresses a broad range of questions about gap processing and uses a broad range of methodologies to cut through the confounds which prevent previous work providing clear answers. Wh-movement, scrambling, raising, and equi structures are all addressed, and all current accounts of the experimental evidence evaluated. The results move the debate forward significantly, and provide clear confirmation of some non-trivial claims of generative grammar.

Sentence Processing: A Crosslinguistic Perspective

Sentence Processing: A Crosslinguistic Perspective
Author: Dieter Hillert
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 458
Release: 1998-07-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0585492239

The innovative element of this volume is its overview of the fundamental psycholinguistic topics involved in sentence processing. While most psycholinguistic studies focus on a single language and induce a general model of universal sentence processing, this volume proposes a cross-linguistic approach. It contains two distinct features first embraced in the 18th century by brothers Freiherr Wilhelm von Humboldt and Alexander von Humboldt. First, it offers a linguistic theory that characterizes universal cognitive features of the human language processor (or the mind and its biological source), independent of a single language structure. Second, it contains a language theory which considers the diversity of linguistic structures and provides a powerful theory of language processing. Contributors cover a wide range of topics, including word recognition, fixed expressions, grammatical constraints, empty categories, and parsing. Their research involves analyses of 12 languages. This book provides an overview of central psycholinguistic topics in sentence processing; and combines deductive and inductive methods in fashioning an innovative approach. The contributors address word recognition, fixed expressions, grammatical constraints, empty categories, and parsing. Its original papers form a coherent presentation.

Cognitive Models Of Speech Processing

Cognitive Models Of Speech Processing
Author: Gerry Altmann
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 527
Release: 2013-05-24
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1134832869

A comprehensive review for those interested in the range of theoretical concerns in speech and language processing.

Japanese Sentence Processing

Japanese Sentence Processing
Author: Reiko Mazuka
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1134770146

This volume is a direct result of the International Symposium on Japanese Sentence Processing held at Duke University. The symposium provided the first opportunity for researchers in three disciplinary areas from both Japan and the United States to participate in a conference where they could discuss issues concerning Japanese syntactic processing. The goals of the symposium were three-fold: * to illuminate the mechanisms of Japanese sentence processing from the viewpoints of linguistics, psycholinguistics and computer science; * to synthesize findings about the mechanisms of Japanese sentence processing by researchers in these three fields in Japan and the United States; * to lay foundations for future interdisciplinary research in Japanese sentence processing, as well as international collaborations between researchers in Japan and the United States. The chapters in this volume have been written from the points of view of three different disciplines, with various immediate objectives -- from building usable speech understanding systems to investigating the nature of competence grammars for natural languages. All of the papers share the long term goal of understanding the nature of human language processing mechanisms. The book is concerned with two central issues -- the universality of language processing mechanisms, and the nature of the relation between the components of linguistic knowledge and language processing. This volume demonstrates that interdisciplinary research can be fruitful, and provides groundwork for further research in Japanese sentence processing.

Second Language Sentence Processing

Second Language Sentence Processing
Author: Alan Juffs
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2014-12-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1136217207

This addition to the Cognitive Science and Second Language Acquisition series presents a comprehensive review of the latest research findings on sentence processing in second language acquisition. The book begins with a broad overview of the core issues of second language sentence processing research and then narrows its focus by dedicating individual chapters to each of these key areas. While a number of publications have discussed research findings on knowledge of formal syntactic principles as part of theories of second language acquisition, there are fewer resources dedicated to the role of second language sentence processing in this context. This volume will act as the first full-length literature review of the field on the market.

Research in Second Language Processing and Parsing

Research in Second Language Processing and Parsing
Author: Bill VanPatten
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2010
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027253153

This volume is the first dedicated to the growing field of theory and research on second language processing and parsing. The fourteen papers in this volume offer cutting-edge research using a number of different languages (e.g., Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, English) and structures (e.g., relative clauses, wh-gaps, gender, number) to examine various issues in second language processing: first language influence, whether or not non-natives can achieve native-like processing, the roles of context and prosody, the effects of working memory, and others. The researchers include both established scholars and newer voices, all offering important insights into the factors that affect processing and parsing in a second language.

Case and Linking in Language Comprehension

Case and Linking in Language Comprehension
Author: Markus Bader
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2006-05-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1402043449

The German language, due to its verb-final nature, relatively free order of constituents and morphological Case system, poses challenges for models of human syntactic processing which have mainly been developed on the basis of head-initial languages with little or no morphological Case. The verb-final order means that the parser has to make predictions about the input before receiving the verb. What are these predictions? What happens when the predictions turn out to be wrong? Furthermore, the German morphological Case system contains ambiguities. How are these ambiguities resolved under the normal time pressure in comprehension? Based on theoretical as well as experimental work, the present monograph develops a detailed account of the processing steps that underly language comprehension. At its core is a model of linking noun phrases to arguments of the verb in the developing phrase structure and checking the result with respect to features such as person, number and Case. This volume contains detailed introductions to human syntactic processing as well as to German syntax which will be helpful especially for readers less familiar with psycholinguistics and with Germanic.

Language Processing

Language Processing
Author: Simon Garrod
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2016-01-28
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1317715365

Language Processing questions what happens when we process language - what mental operations occur during processing and how they are organised over time. The last decade has seen real advances in the study of language processing that have wide ranging implications for human cognition in general. Language Processing gives an account of these developments both as they relate to experimental studies of processing and as they relate to computational modelling of the processes. In addition to chapters covering core topics, such as lexical processing, syntactic parsing and the comprehension of discourse, special topics of recent interest are also included.

Reanalysis in Sentence Processing

Reanalysis in Sentence Processing
Author: J. Fodor
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9401590702

The topic addressed in this volume lies within the study of sentence processing, which is one of the major divisions of psycholinguistics. The goal has been to understand the structure and functioning of the mental mechanisms involved in sentence comprehension. Most of the experimental and theoretical work during the last twenty or thirty years has focused on 'first-pass parsing', the process of assigning structure to a sentence as its words are encountered, one at a time, 'from left to right' . One important guiding idea has been to delineate the processing mechanisms by studying where they fai!. For this purpose we identify types of sentences which perceivers have trouble assigning structure to. An important class of perceptually difficult senten ces are those which contain temporary ambiguities. Since the parsing mechanism cannot tell what the intended structure is, it may make an incorrect guess. Then later on in the sentence, the structure assignment process breaks down, because the later words do not fit with the incorrect structural analysis. This is called a 'garden path' situation. When it occurs, the parsing mechanism must somehow correct itself, and find a different analysis which is compatible with the incoming words. This reanalysis process is the subject of the research reported here.