Prosodic Phrasing and Transitivity in Head-Final Sentence Comprehension – ERP Evidence from German Ambiguous DPs

Exploring the Similarity Between Implicit and Explicit Prosody: Prosodic Phrasing and Individual Differences

Language and Speech ◽

10.1177/0023830920972732 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 002383092097273

Author(s):

Jason Bishop

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Working Memory Capacity ◽

Silent Reading ◽

Memory Capacity ◽

Prosodic Phrasing ◽

Prosodic Phrase ◽

Implicit Prosody ◽

Implicit Prosody Hypothesis

In recent years, work carried out in the context of the implicit prosody hypothesis (IPH) has called into question the assumption that implicit (i.e., silently generated) prosody and explicit (overtly produced) prosody are similar in form. Focusing on prosodic phrasing, the present study explored this issue using an individual differences approach, and using methods that do not rely on the sentence comprehension tests characteristic of work within the IPH program. A large group of native English speakers participated in a production experiment intended to identify individual differences in average prosodic phrase length, phonologically defined. We then explored whether these (explicit) prosodic differences were related to two other kinds of variation, each with a connection to implicit prosody. First, we tested whether individual differences in explicit prosodic phrase length were predicted by individual differences in working memory capacity, a relationship that has been established for implicit prosody. Second, we explored whether participants’ explicit prosodic phrase lengths were predictive of their behavior in a silent-reading task in which they had to identify their own implicit prosodic groupings. In both cases, the findings are argued to be consistent with a similarity between explicit and implicit prosody. First, participants with higher working memory capacity (as estimated by reading spans) were associated with longer prosodic phrases. Second, participants who produced longer explicit prosodic phrases in speech tended to report generating longer prosodic phrases in silent reading. Implications for the nature of implicit prosody, and how it can be studied, are discussed.

Download Full-text

The Role of Prosody in Semantic Interpretation

Music Perception An Interdisciplinary Journal ◽

10.2307/40285779 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 79-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Joel Pynte

Keyword(s):

Perceptual Grouping ◽

Argument Structure ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Noun Phrases ◽

Higher Order ◽

Semantic Interpretation ◽

Prosodic Phrasing ◽

On Line

Four psycholinguistic experiments are reported, the aim of which was to examine whether and how the perceptual grouping of words into higher order units imposed by prosody can influence on-line sentence comprehension. The results suggest that prosodic phrasing does not directly influence syntactic decisions, but rather operates at the semantic interpretation level, in relation with lexical and discourse-level factors (e. g., verbs' argument structure and referential completedness of noun phrases).

Download Full-text

When Hearing Does Not Mean Understanding: On the Neural Processing of Syntactically Complex Sentences by Listeners With Hearing Loss

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00262 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Margreet Vogelzang ◽

Christiane M. Thiel ◽

Stephanie Rosemann ◽

Jochem W. Rieger ◽

Esther Ruigendijk

Keyword(s):

Hearing Loss ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Secondary Task ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Cognitive Demands ◽

Sentence Complexity ◽

Complex Sentences ◽

And Task

Purpose Adults with mild-to-moderate age-related hearing loss typically exhibit issues with speech understanding, but their processing of syntactically complex sentences is not well understood. We test the hypothesis that listeners with hearing loss' difficulties with comprehension and processing of syntactically complex sentences are due to the processing of degraded input interfering with the successful processing of complex sentences. Method We performed a neuroimaging study with a sentence comprehension task, varying sentence complexity (through subject–object order and verb–arguments order) and cognitive demands (presence or absence of a secondary task) within subjects. Groups of older subjects with hearing loss ( n = 20) and age-matched normal-hearing controls ( n = 20) were tested. Results The comprehension data show effects of syntactic complexity and hearing ability, with normal-hearing controls outperforming listeners with hearing loss, seemingly more so on syntactically complex sentences. The secondary task did not influence off-line comprehension. The imaging data show effects of group, sentence complexity, and task, with listeners with hearing loss showing decreased activation in typical speech processing areas, such as the inferior frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus. No interactions between group, sentence complexity, and task were found in the neuroimaging data. Conclusions The results suggest that listeners with hearing loss process speech differently from their normal-hearing peers, possibly due to the increased demands of processing degraded auditory input. Increased cognitive demands by means of a secondary visual shape processing task influence neural sentence processing, but no evidence was found that it does so in a different way for listeners with hearing loss and normal-hearing listeners.

Download Full-text