Unimmediate construction of syntactic structure for garden path sentences in Japanese

1993 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Nagata
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Garden Path

scholarly journals Effects of Cooperating and Conflicting Prosody in Spoken English Garden Path Sentences: ERP Evidence for the Boundary Deletion Hypothesis

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 2731-2751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efrat Pauker ◽  
Inbal Itzhak ◽  
Shari R. Baum ◽  
Karsten Steinhauer
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
On Line ◽  
Prosodic Boundary

In reading, a comma in the wrong place can cause more severe misunderstandings than the lack of a required comma. Here, we used ERPs to demonstrate that a similar effect holds for prosodic boundaries in spoken language. Participants judged the acceptability of temporarily ambiguous English “garden path” sentences whose prosodic boundaries were either in line or in conflict with the actual syntactic structure. Sentences with incongruent boundaries were accepted less than those with missing boundaries and elicited a stronger on-line brain response in ERPs (N400/P600 components). Our results support the notion that mentally deleting an overt prosodic boundary is more costly than postulating a new one and extend previous findings, suggesting an immediate role of prosody in sentence comprehension. Importantly, our study also provides new details on the profile and temporal dynamics of the closure positive shift (CPS), an ERP component assumed to reflect prosodic phrasing in speech and music in real time. We show that the CPS is reliably elicited at the onset of prosodic boundaries in English sentences and is preceded by negative components. Its early onset distinguishes the speech CPS in adults both from prosodic ERP correlates in infants and from the “music CPS” previously reported for trained musicians.

Syntactic structure and the garden path

1987 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. M. Holmes ◽  
A. Kennedy ◽  
W. S. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Structural Reanalysis ◽  
Complement Clause

The experiment investigated locally ambiguous English sentences containing “complement” verbs such as believe, which can be followed either by a direct object or by a complement clause. These two sentence types were compared with unambiguous sentences in which the complement clause was introduced by the word that. Subjects processed numerous examples of these sentences in a word-by-word self-paced reading task. At the disambiguation point after the ambiguous noun phrase, longer reading times were obtained for reduced complement constructions compared with direct object sentences. Such an effect has been attributed to the operation of the parsing principle Minimal Attachment (Frazier and Rayner, 1982). This principle predicts that subjects assume falsely that the noun phrase after the complement verb in the reduced complement constructions is the direct object, resulting in the need for subsequent structural reanalysis. However, longer times in the disambiguating zone were also found for the unambiguous that complements. Thus, the complexity difference seems not to represent “garden-pathing” as a result of the operation of Minimal Attachment, but may instead reflect the extra complexity caused by having to handle two sets of clausal relations instead of just one.

scholarly journals Attention Modulates Electrophysiological Responses to Simultaneous Music and Language Syntax Processing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J Lee ◽  
Harim Jung ◽  
Psyche Loui
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Electrophysiological Responses ◽  
Musical Syntax ◽  
Anterior Negativity

Music and language are hypothesized to share neural resources, particularly at the level of syntax processing. Recent reports suggest that attention modulates this sharing of neural resources, but the time-course of the effects of attention, and the degree to which attention operates similarly on music and language, are yet unclear. In this EEG study we manipulate the syntactic structure of simultaneously presented musical chord progressions and garden-path sentences in a modified rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, while varying top-down attentional demands to the two modalities. The Early Right Anterior Negativity (ERAN) was observed in response to both attended and unattended musical syntax violations. In contrast, an N400 was only observed in response to attended linguistic syntax violations, and a P3 only in response to attended musical syntax violations. Results show that top-down allocation of attention indeed affects the processing of syntax in both music and language, with different neural resources acting upon the two modalities particularly at later stages of cognitive processing. However, the processing of musical syntax at an earlier stage of the perceptual-cognitive pathway, as indexed by the ERAN, is partially automatic, and is strongly indicative of separate neural resources for music and language.

scholarly journals Attention Modulates Electrophysiological Responses to Simultaneous Music and Language Syntax Processing

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee ◽  
Jung ◽  
Loui
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Electrophysiological Responses ◽  
Musical Syntax ◽  
Early Processing

Music and language are hypothesized to engage the same neural resources, particularly at the level of syntax processing. Recent reports suggest that attention modulates the shared processing of music and language, but the time-course of the effects of attention on music and language syntax processing are yet unclear. In this EEG study we vary top-down attention to language and music, while manipulating the syntactic structure of simultaneously presented musical chord progressions and garden-path sentences in a modified rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. The Early Right Anterior Negativity (ERAN) was observed in response to both attended and unattended musical syntax violations. In contrast, an N400 was only observed in response to attended linguistic syntax violations, and a P3/P600 only in response to attended musical syntax violations. Results suggest that early processing of musical syntax, as indexed by the ERAN, is relatively automatic; however, top-down allocation of attention changes the processing of syntax in both music and language at later stages of cognitive processing.

scholarly journals Neural Measures Reveal Implicit Learning during Language Processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1636-1649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Batterink ◽  
Larry Y. Cheng ◽  
Ken A. Paller
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Learning ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Font Color

Language input is highly variable; phonological, lexical, and syntactic features vary systematically across different speakers, geographic regions, and social contexts. Previous evidence shows that language users are sensitive to these contextual changes and that they can rapidly adapt to local regularities. For example, listeners quickly adjust to accented speech, facilitating comprehension. It has been proposed that this type of adaptation is a form of implicit learning. This study examined a similar type of adaptation, syntactic adaptation, to address two issues: (1) whether language comprehenders are sensitive to a subtle probabilistic contingency between an extraneous feature (font color) and syntactic structure and (2) whether this sensitivity should be attributed to implicit learning. Participants read a large set of sentences, 40% of which were garden-path sentences containing temporary syntactic ambiguities. Critically, but unbeknownst to participants, font color probabilistically predicted the presence of a garden-path structure, with 75% of garden-path sentences (and 25% of normative sentences) appearing in a given font color. ERPs were recorded during sentence processing. Almost all participants indicated no conscious awareness of the relationship between font color and sentence structure. Nonetheless, after sufficient time to learn this relationship, ERPs time-locked to the point of syntactic ambiguity resolution in garden-path sentences differed significantly as a function of font color. End-of-sentence grammaticality judgments were also influenced by font color, suggesting that a match between font color and sentence structure increased processing fluency. Overall, these findings indicate that participants can implicitly detect subtle co-occurrences between physical features of sentences and abstract, syntactic properties, supporting the notion that implicit learning mechanisms are generally operative during online language processing.

Syntactic ambiguity resolution and revision processes in complement sentences

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroki Fujita
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Correct Analysis ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Contradictory Evidence ◽  
Processing Heuristic

Temporarily ambiguous sentences are sometimes misanalysed and require revision during sentence processing. Previous studies have reported that non-syntactic information such as verb subcategorisation information does not always prevent misanalysis. However, there is contradictory evidence about whether non-syntactic information is immediately used to recover the globally correct analysis. Previous studies have also reported that initially assigned misinterpretations linger after disambiguation. Some recent studies have suggested that this lingering misinterpretation does not result from a failure to conduct syntactic revision. However, the current evidence for syntactic revision is scarce, limited to a syntactic structure and eye-movement while reading task, and crucially does not necessarily prove that syntactic revision is successfully conducted. The present study reports three self-paced reading experiments that investigate these issues, using temporarily ambiguous complement sentences. Experiment 1 showed that temporarily ambiguous complement sentences are misanalysed during sentence processing, which subsequently causes garden-path effects and lingering misinterpretation. Experiment 2 suggested that non-syntactic information is immediately used to recover the globally correct analysis. However, there was an indication that the incorrect analysis remains activated. Experiment 3 revealed that syntactic revision is conducted in complement sentences without regressive eye movements. The present study argues that the good-enough account can explain these results if this account assumes that a syntactic processing heuristic such as the Canonical Sentoid Strategy is used during the processing of temporarily ambiguous complement sentences.

Towards the Use of a Tree Branching Logic in the Environment of a Hospital Information System

1980 ◽  
Vol 19 (04) ◽  
pp. 187-194
Author(s):  
J.-Ph. Berney ◽  
R. Baud ◽  
J.-R. Scherrer
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Selection System ◽  
Frame Selection ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Medical Language ◽  
Selection Systems ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Man Machine Dialogue ◽  
Oriented System

It is well known that Frame Selection Systems (FFS) have proved both popular and effective in physician-machine and patient-machine dialogue. A formal algorithm for definition of a Frame Selection System for handling man-machine dialogue is presented here. Besides, it is shown how the natural medical language can be handled using the approach of a tree branching logic. This logic appears to be based upon ordered series of selections which enclose a syntactic structure. The external specifications are discussed with regard to convenience and efficiency. Knowing that all communication between the user and the application programmes is handled only by FSS software, FSS contributes to achieving modularity and, therefore, also maintainability in a transaction-oriented system with a large data base and concurrent accesses.

Similarities in the Syntactic Structure of the German and Croatian Language

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-118
Author(s):  
Manuela Svoboda
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
German Language ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Subordinate Clauses

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyse any potential similarities between the Croatian and German language and present them adopting a contrastive approach with the intent of simplifying the learning process in regards to the German syntactic structure for Croatian German as foreign language students. While consulting articles and books on the theories and methods of foreign language teaching, attention is usually drawn to differences between the mother tongue and the foreign language, especially concerning false friends etc. The same applies to textbooks, workbooks and how teachers behave in class. Thus, it is common practice to deal with the differences between the foreign language and the mother tongue but less with similarities. This is unfortunate considering that this would likely aid in acquiring certain grammatical and syntactic structures of the foreign language. In the author's opinion, similarities are as, if not more, important than differences. Therefore, in this article the existence of similarities between the Croatian and German language will be examined closer with a main focus on the segment of sentence types. Special attention is drawn to subordinate clauses as they play an important role when speaking and/or translating sentences from Croatian to German and vice versa. In order to present and further clarify this matter, subordinate clauses in both the German and Croatian language are defined, clarified and listed to gain an oversight and to present possible similarities between the two. In addition, the method to identify subordinate clauses in a sentence is explained as well as what they express, which conjunctions are being used for each type of subordinate clause in both languages and where the similarities and/or differences between the two languages lie.

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