Chapter 6 Flashcards
Active voice
A sentence structure in which the agent is mapped onto the subject position
Agent
The entity that causes the event portrayed in a sentence to occur
Agreement
A set of syntactic devices for linking related elements within and between sentences
Canonical word order
The typical sequence of sentence elements
Clause
A simple sentence that is part of a larger complex sentence
Cleft sentence
A syntactic structure that attaches an introductory clause to the beginning of a sentence for the purpose of highlighting one of the participants in the event
Cloze probability
The likelihood that a person will complete a sentence with a particular word
Collocation
A sequence of words that frequently go together
Connectionist network
A computer program that models statistical learning
Constraint-based model
The proposal that syntactic analysis and semantic interpretation occur simultaneously and influence each other
Dative construction
A syntactic structure that entails the meaning of doing something for the benefit of someone else
Garden path model
A two-staged model of sentence processing in which syntactic analysis precedes semantic interpretation
Garden path sentence
A sentence that deviates significantly from expected structure, making it difficult to process
Heuristic
A mental shortcut to problem solving that usually, but not always, gives the correct answer
Hierarchical structure in advance planning
A programming approach that makes a general plan at the highest level while restricting the scope of planning at lower levels
High attachment
The parsing strategy of attaching a prepositional phrase to the verb
Incremental model
A model in which the processing at one step is still underway when the processing at the next step begins
Intonational phrase boundary
A prosodic cue consisting of a change of pitch, usually downward, and a lengthening of the final syllable that signals the end of a syntactic phrase
Irreversible sentence
A sentence that no longer makes real-word sense if the agent and patient swap subject and object positions
Late closure
A syntactic parsing strategy that continues to add new words to the current structure unless there is sufficient evidence that a new structure should begin
Late language emergence
A condition in which children are initially delayed in language development but eventually catch up with their peers
Lexical boost
An increase in syntactic priming when the verb is repeated between the prime and target sentences
Lexical bootstrapping
The ability use word meanings to make inferences about syntactic structure
Low attachment
The parsing strategy of attaching a prepositional phrase to the object
Mean length of utterance
The standard measure of children’s syntactic complexity
N400
A negative-going ERP waveform that begins about 400 milliseconds after a semantically inconsistent stimulus is presented
Number of different words
A common measure of the child’s productive vocabulary
Overgeneralization
The treatment of irregular words as if they were regularly inflected
P600
A positive-going ERP waveform that starts about 600 milliseconds after a syntactically inconsistent stimulus is presented
Parallel model
A model in which the processing at one step occurs simultaneously with the same processing at other steps
Passive voice
A sentence structure in which the patient is mapped onto the subject position
Patient
The entity that is acted upon in the event that is portrayed in a sentence
Poverty-of-the-stimulus argument
The position that the linguistic input children receive is insufficient for them to learn the language
Prosodic bootstrapping
A hypothesis proposing that infants use intonation and stress patterns to infer phrase and word boundaries. The use of prosodic patterns to identify syntactic structure
Reduced relative clause
A kind of embedded syntactic structure that allows for the economy of expression but can be extremely difficult to process in some cases
Referential priming
An experimental procedure in which the participant is first shown only one of the items of a visual display before the full display is presented
Relative clause
A sentence that is placed inside of another sentence for the purpose of describing a noun
Repetition suppression
A reduction in brain activity when a syntactically primed sentence is processed
Reversible sentence
A sentence that still makes sense, nut with a different meaning, if the agent and patient swap subject and object positions
Revision
A disruption of speech that changes the syntactic structure of the utterance
Scrambling
The syntactic process of putting the object before the subject
Sentence-picture matching task
A procedure in which the respondent selects from a set of pictures that one that is described by the prompt sentence
Serial model
A model in which all of the processing at one step needs to be completed before moving on to the next step
Stall
A disruption of speech that does not change the syntactic structure of the utterance
Syntactic priming
The tendency to repeat a previously heard sentence structure
Syntax
A set of rules for ordering words in a sentence
Thematic role assignment
The mapping of thematic roles onto syntactic positions such as subject and object
Thematic roles
The various types of participants involved in an event portrayed in a sentence
Usage-based framework
The position that the child uses general cognitive mechanisms like pattern detection and categorization to gradually build an understanding of the grammar of the language
