Lecture 4 Flashcards
what is competence?
speaker-hearer’s knowledge of the language
- allows for grammaticality judgements, even of sentences we have never heard before
(what linguists are more interested in)
what is performance?
the actual use of language in concrete situations
not (necessarily) the same as what is in our competence due to memory limitations, hesitations, errors, distractions
(more of interest to psycholinguists)
describe how grammar is generative
finite number of rules to generate infinite number of sentences
this is the house that jack built
due to a property of the language knows as recursion (when a rule refers to a version of itself in its definition)
what is on-line incremental parsing?
the parser constructs a syntactic structure on the basis of the words as they arrive, based on our syntactic knowledge
what is syntax?
the arrangement of words and phrases to create well formed sentences in a language
considering parsing models, what is the question of encapsulation?
are different sources of knowledge (e.g., syntax, semantics, discourse) separate, specialised components, and/or do they interact with each other?
generally accepted they do interact but when? immediately or are there independent stages?
syntactic information first and on its own
what kind of information does serial processing take into account?
semantics, 2 stages -> modular accounts
what kind of information does interactive processing take into account?
all info at the same time, interactive account
what is the Garden-Path model?
modular accounts
stage 1: parsing done solely on basis of syntactic preferences. two principles: minimal attachment and late closure
stage 2: if the parse is incompatible with (following) syntactic, semantic, thematic, information, reanalysis occurs
what is minimal attachment?
go for the simplest structure, i.e. the one with the fewest nodes (S, NP, VP, V, P, PP)
what is late closure?
(if no difference in tree nodes) keep phrase open attach incoming material to the constituent being processed
“Attach low”, i.e. attach to the most recent constituent
what are the constraint-based models?
all potentially relevant sources of information “constraints” can be used immediately to help syntactic parsing
including semantics, discourse, frequency of a syntactic construction
all possible syntactic analyses are generate in parallel with the activation of each analysis dependent upon the support available at that moment
- if one analysis is strongly preferred -> easy
- if several analyses get comparable support -> difficult because of competition between the different analyses
what semantic information gets activated upon reading a word?
unlike syntactic processing/parsing, unlimited number of possibilities: Sentence: 10 words, 20 choices/position -> 10^20 combinations
semantic processor needs to be flexible in order to deal with the variety of input quickly
define homonym
word with 2 unrelated interpretations
what is selective access (older models)?
context restricts access to contextually appropriate meaning
what is ordered access (older models)?
activation on basis of meaning frequency, tried against context
what is parallel access (older models)?
all meanings activated
give an example of a biased homonym
last night, the port had a strange flavour
last night, the soup had a strange flavour
because it had a strange flavour, the port was not served
because it had a strange flavour, the soup was not served
give an example of balanced homonyms
he found the cabin too hot to sleep in
he found the coach too hot to sleep in
because it was too hot to sleep in, the cabin was not used
because it was too hot to sleep in, the coach was not used
describe the reordered access model
hybrid of exhaustive and selective access models
prior context can give “contextual boost”, increase the activation level of one meaning
homonyms can be biased or balanced, depending on the relative frequencies of the meanings
subordinate bias effect
define metonymy
one salient part or property of an entity is used to refer to the entity as a whole
e.g. the wings took off from the runway (part-for-whole or synecdoche)
the concerned father walked to the school (literal)
the concerned father talked to the school (metonymy)
what are the 4 conditions for place-for-institution?
literal context-familiar metonymy (LC - FM)
metonymic context-familiar metonymy (MC - FM)
literal context-no familiar metonymy (LC - NM)
metonymic context-no familiar metonymy (MC - NM)
what are the 4 conditions for place-for-event?
literal context-familiar metonymy (LC - FM)
metonymic context-familiar metonymy (MC - FM)
literal context-no familiar metonymy (LC - NM)
metonymic context-no familiar metonymy (MC - NM)
define pragmatics
the distinction between what a speaker’s words (literally) mean and what the speaker might mean by his words”
combination of word meanings for individual words (lexical ambiguity) and some kind of principle of compositionally [word meanings and how they are combined]
how do we understand the meaning of text and discourse (written and spoken passages)?
words identified, syntactic structure built
what is an inference?
inference is the process of developing information that goes beyond the literal meaning of text “the fisherman pulled the fish onto the deck of the ship with some difficulty”
what are the three main types of inferences?
logical, bridging, elaborative
what are logical inferences?
based on word meaning
e.g. “fish” -> implies “lives in the sea”
what are bridiging inferences?
aka backward inference: relate new to previous information in order to maintain coherence
what are elaborative inferences?
aka forward inferences: extend the text with your own world knowledge
become part of our memory of the text, practically indistinguishable from original material
what is the minimalist approach to whether inferences are automatic?
only two kinds of inferences encoded during reading automatically
- those necessary for local coherence - connections between sentences that are no further than one to two sentences apart
- those based on quickly and easily available information - info based in STM
in practice: logical & bridging inferences (+ maybe a few easily available elaborative ones)
(most) elaborative inferences are made at the time of recall (hence, not during processing)
what is the constructionist approach to whether inferences are automatic?
numerous elaborative inferences are typically drawn during reading
“three turtles rested on a floating log and a fish swam beneath them”
inference: “swimming beneath them” and “them being on a log” implies. that the fish also swam beneath “it”. the fish swam beneath them/it: pps can’t distinguish what they heard (in contrast to “rested beside the log”)
describe the hybrid approach search-after-meaning
sometimes we read more minimalist, sometimes more constructionist
depends on the reader’s goals:
- more cursory, faster reading, and/or when reader has less background knowledge: minimalist
- more in-depth, slower, when reading for enjoyment: more constructionist
-> drawing inferences can be strategic
and might depend on individual differences *
*better adolescent readers -> more likely to draw inferences
explain individual differences in comprehension skills
less skilled comprehenders:
- drawer fewer inferences;
- poorer integration of meaning across sentences
related to:
- differences in verbal working memory;
- measured by reading span
- attention;
- suppression of irrelevant/inappropriate material
give three examples of suppression
- suppressing the inappropriate meaning of homonyms
he dug with the spade -> ACE (unrelated to intended meaning of spade) - rejecting the incorrect form of homophones
he had lots of patients -> CALM (related to patience) - understanding puns: understanding the pun hinges on the ability to suppress the contextually more predictable meaning or bar -> more difficult for less skilled comprehenders
explain essentialism
2 words with the same referent
natural kinds -> identify judgements based on innate, “essential” underlying qualities. (its “DNA”)
artefacts -> identify judgements based on superficial, perceptual features *includes functional aspects
what is the theory of mind?
the ability to understand that other people can have different views, beliefs, mental states,… and that their mental representations of the world can be different from the actual one
emerges around 3-4 y.o.a
ToM crucial for successful communication & understanding of many different kinds of language
- irony, sarcasm, metaphors, lies
- character’s perspectives, knowledge status
summarise the lecture
readers/listeners constructs a syntactic representation incrementally
the activation of the meanings of lexically ambiguous words is affected (bottom-up) by meaning frequency and (top down) by contextual support. for lexically polysemous words: initial activation of underspecified meaning
inferencing is necessary to maintain coherence and cohesiveness
language users usually use “good enough” heuristics rather than calculating trying to attain an in-depth understanding
