Presentations text content in syntax
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syntax 7On-line processingDAY 36 – nov 20, 2013
Brain & Language
LING 4110-4890-5110-7960
NSCI 4110-4891-6110
Harry Howard
Tulane
University
Slide2Course organization
The syllabus, these slides and my recordings are available at http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/LING4110/.If you want to learn more about EEG and neurolinguistics, you are welcome to participate in my lab. This is also a good way to get started on an honor's thesis.The grades are posted to Blackboard.
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Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
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Slide3Review
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Slide4Center embedding
8a) The dog chased the cat.8b) The cat hunted the rat.8c) The rat nibbled the cheese.9) The rat the cat hunted nibbled the cheese.10) The rat the cat the dog chased hunted nibbled the cheese.
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Slide5How might this be processed?
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Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
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thematic role for ‘the rat’
thematic role for ‘the cat’
thematic role for ‘the dog’
The parser encounters …
the rat > look for a predicate to supply a thematic role …
the cat > wait, put the previous search on hold & look for another predicate to supply a thematic role …
the dog > wait, put the previous search on hold & look for yet another predicate to supply a thematic role …
Ok, now I am lost.
push-down stack
Slide6Is the following a good way to describe the grammar of English?
Mary bought a book for John.The direct object THEME follows the verb in English.Which book did Mary buy for John?The direct object THEME follows the verb in English or precedes the clause when it is introduced by which.John asked Mary about a student.TOPIC tends to be the object of the preposition about.Which student did John ask Mary about?TOPIC tends to be the object of the preposition about, or it precedes the clause when it is introduced by which.Is there a principle of science that can help us out here?
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Slide7Sentence comprehension and syntactic parsing
Ingram I, §13 On-line processing, working memory and modularity
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Slide8Leprechauns!
Think of an explanation for
something:The Earth spinning on its axis makes day and night.The Earth spinning on its axis or leprechauns pushing it, makes day and night.Rain falls when water condenses in the atmosphere.Rain falls when water condenses in the atmosphere or leprechauns piss from clouds.Does adding leprechauns to all our explanations make them better?
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Slide9Ockham’s razor, simplicity, economylex parsimoniae
Ockham’s razor is a principle that generally recommends selecting from among competing hypotheses the one that makes the fewest new assumptions.Einstein-ish: “Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
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Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
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Slide10Back to our sentences
The sentences and their leprechaunsMary bought a book for John.Which book did Mary buy for John?John asked Mary about a student.Which student did John ask Mary about?How to get rid of the leprechaunsMary bought a book for John.Which booki did John buy ____i for Mary?John asked Mary about a student.Which studenti did John ask Mary about ____i ?(b, d) are called filler-gap constructions, though the gap is also called a trace.
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Slide11Cross-modal priming & trace reactivationsentence presented auditorily; prime & probe visually
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16) Which booki did the harassed parent almost purchase ti for her child?
prime
probe:library/vehicle
faster for related
same for both
faster for related
Slide12Gaps/traces in relative clauses
The dog chased the cat.Subject relative clauseThe dog that chased the cat … =The dogi that ti chased the cat … Object relative clauseThe cat that the dog chased … =The cati that the dog chased ti …Which one should be harder to process?The object relative clause, because the relationship between the real filler (the cat) and the gap has to ignore the potential filler (the dog).I am ignoring Ingram’s discussion of Gibson’s load/capacity theory of parsing, which is very interesting, but we don’t have time.
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Slide13Self-paced reading & subject-object
The data: reading time for us20a) My brother wanted to know if Ruth will bring us home to Mom at Xmas.20b) My brother wanted to know who will bring us home to Mom at Xmas. =20b) My brother wanted to know whoi ti will bring us home to Mom at Xmas.20c) My brother wanted to know who Ruth will bring us home to at Xmas. = 20c) My brother wanted to know whoi Ruth will bring us home to ti at Xmas.Which one should be slowest?(20c) because us is a possible site for the gap/trace of who.
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Slide14NEXT TIME
Ingram §14, Agrammatism revisited
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syntax
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