Sentence comprehension: The integration of habits and rules. David J. Townsend and Thomas G. Bever. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. Pp. 455.

2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-477
Author(s):  
Ngoni Chipere
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
The Other ◽  
Statistical Characteristics ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Rules ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Syntactic Derivation ◽  
Linguistic Usage ◽  
Human Sentence Processing

This book attempts to integrate symbolic processing, in the form of minimalism, with connectionism. Minimalism represents sentences as symbolic structures resulting from a formal process of syntactic derivation. Connectionism, on the other hand, represents sentences as patterns of association between linguistic features. These patterns are said to obey statistical regularities of linguistic usage instead of formal linguistic rules. The authors of the book argue that human sentence processing displays both structural and statistical characteristics and therefore requires the integration of the two views.

The French Language in Belgium

1999 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Francard
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
French Language ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Linguistic Usage

Abstract. Relying on recent sociolinguistic research, this paper questions some generally accepted ideas concerning the French spoken by Walloons and Brussels Francophones. In particular, it is shown that the observation of real linguistic usage does not allow one to postulate the existence of a variant like "Standard Belgian French", "Walloon French" or "Brussels French". Contrary to what is implied by naive collections of so-called "Belgicisms", any possible definition of "Belgian French" in terms of specific linguistic features is doomed to failure, because similar phenomena can be registered in other French-speaking areas. On the other hand, Walloons and Brussels Francophones often assume a kind of "identity by substraction" grounded on their own representation of " Belgian French" as a variant devoid of any normative legitimacy. Yet, it is argued here that sociolinguistic changes currently in progress will favour the emergence of an endogenous regional norm.

scholarly journals A new argument for co-active parses during language comprehension

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Dillon ◽  
Caroline Andrews ◽  
Caren M. Rotello ◽  
Matthew Wagers
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
Ambiguity Advantage ◽  
Linguistic Input ◽  
Acceptability Judgments ◽  
Human Sentence Processing ◽  
Processing Mechanism

One perennially important question for theories of sentence comprehension is whether the human sentence processing mechanism is parallel (i.e. it simultaneously represents multiple syntactic analyses of linguistic input) or serial (i.e. it constructs only a single analysis at a time). Despite its centrality, this question has proven difficult to address for both theoretical and methodological reasons (Gibson & Pearlmutter, 2000; Lewis, 2000). In the present study, we reassess this question from a novel perspective. We investigated the well-known ambiguity advantage effect (Traxler, Pickering & Clifton, 1998) in a speeded acceptability judgment task. We adopted a Signal Detection Theoretic approach to these data, with the goal of determining whether speeded judgment responses were conditioned on one or multiple syntactic analyses. To link these results to incremental parsing models, we developed formal models to quantitatively evaluate how serial and parallel parsing models should impact perceived sentence acceptability in our task. Our results suggest that speeded acceptability judgments are jointly conditioned on multiple parses of the input, a finding that is overall more consistent with parallel parsing models than serial models. Our study thus provides a new, psychophysical argument for co-active parses during language comprehension.

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

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.

Isoglosses and language change: Evidence of the rise and loss of isoglosses from a comparison of early Greek and early English

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-575
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Lavidas
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Considerable Distance ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Structural Ambiguity ◽  
Early English ◽  
Aspectual Verbs

Abstract We analyze the rise and loss of isoglosses in two Indo-European languages, early Greek and early English, which, however, show considerable distance between their structures in many other domains. We follow Keidan’s approach (2013), that has drawn the attention on the fact that the study of isoglosses (i.e., linguistic features common to two or more languages) is connected with common innovations of particular languages after the split into sub-groups of Indo-European: this type of approach aims at collecting isoglosses that appear across the branches of Indo-European. We examine the rise of the isogloss of labile verbs and the loss of the isogloss of the two classes of aspectual verbs in early Greek and early English. Our study shows that the rise of labile verbs in both languages is related to the innovative use of intransitives in causative constructions. On the other hand, the innovations in voice morphology follow different directions in Greek and English and are unrelated to the rise of labile verbs. In contrast to labile verbs, which are still predominant for causative-anticausative constructions in both languages, the two classes of aspectual verbs are lost in the later stages of Greek but are predominant even in Present-day English. Again, a “prerequisite” change for the isogloss can be easily located in a structural ambiguity that is relevant for aspectual verbs in early Greek and early English. However, another independent development, the changes in verbal complementation (the development of infinitival and participial complements) in Greek and English, determined the loss of this isogloss.

scholarly journals Reanalysis processes in non-native sentence comprehension

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Hiroki Fujita ◽  
Ian Cunnings
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Memory Trace ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Subordinate Clause

Abstract We report two offline and two eye-movement experiments examining non-native (L2) sentence processing during and after reanalysis of temporarily ambiguous sentences like “While Mary dressed the baby laughed happily”. Such sentences cause reanalysis at the main clause verb (“laughed”), as the temporarily ambiguous noun phrase (“the baby”) may initially be misanalysed as the direct object of the subordinate clause verb (“dressed”). The offline experiments revealed that L2ers have difficulty reanalysing temporarily ambiguous sentences with a greater persistence of the initially assigned misinterpretation than native (L1) speakers. In the eye-movement experiments, we found that L2ers complete reanalysis similarly to L1ers but fail to fully erase the memory trace of the initially assigned interpretation. Our results suggested that the source of L2 reanalysis difficulty is a failure to erase the initially assigned misinterpretation from memory rather than a failure to conduct syntactic reanalysis.

Sentence comprehension in heritage language: Isomorphism, word order, and language transfer

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832199790
Author(s):  
Anna Chrabaszcz ◽  
Elena Onischik ◽  
Olga Dragoy
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Language Transfer ◽  
Processing Strategy ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Linguistic Transfer

This study examines the role of cross-linguistic transfer versus general processing strategy in two groups of heritage speakers ( n = 28 per group) with the same heritage language – Russian – and typologically different dominant languages: English and Estonian. A group of homeland Russian speakers ( n = 36) is tested to provide baseline comparison. Within the framework of the Competition model (MacWhinney, 2012), cross-linguistic transfer is defined as reliance on the processing cue prevalent in the heritage speaker’s dominant language (e.g. word order in English) for comprehension of heritage language. In accordance with the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis (O’Grady and Lee, 2005), the general processing strategy is defined in terms of isomorphism as a linear alignment between the order of the sentence constituents and the temporal sequence of events. Participants were asked to match pictures on the computer screen with auditorily presented sentences. Sentences included locative or instrumental constructions, in which two cues – word order (basic vs. inverted) and isomorphism mapping (isomorphic vs. nonisomorphic) – were fully crossed. The results revealed that (1) Russian native speakers are sensitive to isomorphism in sentence processing; (2) English-dominant heritage speakers experience dominant language transfer, as evidenced by their reliance primarily on the word order cue; (3) Estonian-dominant heritage speakers do not show significant effects of isomorphism or word order but experience significant processing costs in all conditions.

Recency preference in the human sentence processing mechanism

Cognition ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Gibson ◽  
Neal Pearlmutter ◽  
Enriqueta Canseco-Gonzalez ◽  
Gregory Hickok
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Human Sentence Processing ◽  
Processing Mechanism

Cognitive and Physiological Substrates of Impaired Sentence Processing in Parkinson's Disease

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 480-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray Grossman ◽  
Susan Carvell ◽  
Stephen Gollomp ◽  
Matthew B. Stern ◽  
Martin Reivich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
Left Caudate ◽  
Regional Cerebral Glucose Metabolism

Sentence comprehension is a complex process involving at least a grammatical processor and a procedural component that supports language computations. One type of cerebral architecture that may underlie sentence processing is a network of distributed brain regions. We report two experiments designed to evaluate the cognitive and physiological substrate of sentence processing diaculties in nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). In the first experiment, patients answered simple questions about sentences that varied in their computational demands. Group and individual patient analyses indicated that PD patients are significantly compromised on this task, and that their difficulties become more prominent as the computational demands of the sentences increase. We manipulated the set of sentences to stress performance aspects of sentence processing. PD patients were compromised in their ability to detect errors in the presence and nature of a sentence's grammatical morphemes, suggesting a deficit in selective attention, but their ability to answer questions about a sentence was not afFected by short-term memory factors. In the second experiment, positron emission tomography was used to correlate this pattern of sentence comprehension impairment with regional cerebral glucose metabolism (rCMRgl) obtained at rest in a representative subset of these PD patients. Grammatical comprehension and attention in sentence processing correlated significantly with mesial frontal rCMRgl. Regression analyses confirmed the central role of left mesial frontal cortex, and identified a subsidiary role for left caudate in overall sentence comprehension, for left dorsolateral frontal cortex in grammatical processing, and for bilateral dorsolateral frontal cortex in attending to the presence of grammatical features. We conclude that compromised mesial frontal functioning underlies in part the sentence processing deficit of these patients, and these data illustrate one method for mapping portions of a sentence processing mechanism onto a distributed cerebral architecture.

scholarly journals Incrementality and Prediction in Human Sentence Processing

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerry T. M. Altmann ◽  
Jelena Mirković
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Human Sentence Processing
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