Quiz #3 Flashcards
Recursion
Used to create infinite sentences, keep adding info to a simple sentence
Repetition
Used to create infinite sentences, repeating certain words
Generative grammar
A system of rules that can generate all the grammatical sentences of a language
Open class
Content words
-Nouns, verbs, adj, adv
Closed class
Function words
-Determiner, prepositions, conj, pronoun
Intransitive verb
Verb takes no object (lie, sleep)
Transitive verb
Verb takes one object (hug, kick)
Ditransitive verb
Verb takes two objects (give, put)
Ditransitive double object (DO) example
“I gave my friend the book”
VP–> V NP NP
Ditransitive prepositional object (PO) example
“I gave the book to my friend”
VP–> V NP PP
Agent
Instigator of an action (corresponding to subject, usually animate)
Theme
The thing that has a particular location or change of location
Recipient
The person receiving the theme
Location
Where the theme is
Source
Where the theme is coming from
Goal
Where the theme is moving to
Time
Time of the event
Instrument
The thing used in causing the event
Argument structure
Thematic relation a verb is required to have
Globally ambiguous
Entire sentence has two possible structures (ex: “The boy saw the detective with the telescope”)
Temporally ambiguous
Point in sentence where two structures are possible, but full sentence only has one possible structure (ex: “The soldiers warned about the dangers…”)
Garden-path sentence
Grammatically correct sentence that starts in a way reader’s will interpret as incorrect, lured into parse that ends in dead end or yields unintended meaning
What info do comprehenders use to make parses? (2)
- Syntax-first theories: use only syntactic cues to construct parse
- Constraint-based theories: use all available info to figure out parse***
How many parses do comprehenders consider? (2)
- Serial processing: one at a time
2. Parallel processing: more than one
Two-Stage Model (Garden Path Model)
- Serial and syntax first
- Comprehenders always construct simplest parse
- Only revise if they get later conflicting syntactic info
Minimal attachment
- Rule for constructing the simplest parse
- When a new phrase comes in, attach it so that you have to create the fewest number of new nodes as possible
Construct 2 versions of GP sentence
- Ambiguous
2. Unambiguous (use “that”)
Late closure
Input should attach to the phrase that is currently being processed
Lexical biases
GP effect completely goes away, evidence against 2 stage model (ex: The landmine buried in the sand exploded”)
Expectation-based syntactic comprehension
The processing difficulty of a word in a sentence is proportional to how probable it is given the prior context
Probabilistic Context-Free Grammar (PCFG)
Like phrase structure rules, but with probabilities attached to them
N-gram models
n-gram = n words
bigram(2): P(fell | barn)
trigram(3): P(fell | the barn)
…
Distance from subject to verb
As RC gets longer, processing the verb will be harder because it’s farther form the subject
Inrementality
In speech production, we plan as we go along
Egocentric production
Speakers only say what is easiest for production, regardless of how easy it is for comprehension (evidence supports this)
Audience design
Speakers take their listener into account during production and try to reduce ambiguity
What is linguistically involved in comprehension? (4)
- Parsing
- Solving ambiguity
- Finding reference
- Inference
Paradigms in studying processing and comprehension (3)
- Self-paced reading
- Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP)
- Sentence completion
What is cognitively involved in comprehension? (3)
- Perception
- Attention
- Long-term memory
Inferring from nonsense
- Semantics>Syntax
- Top-down process
Types of inference (3)
- Logical (ex: “My students are smart and diligent”)
- Bridging (backward) (ex; “Peter was drunk. Red Sox defeated Dodgers and won the World Series”)
- Elaborative
Representative speech act
Speaker is conveying their belief that a statement is true
Directive speech act
Speaker is trying to get the listener to do something
Commissive speech act
Speaker commits themselves to a future action
Declarative speech act
Speaker brings about a new state of affairs (ex: marrying people)
Expressive speech act
Speaker wishes to reveal his or her psychological state
Locutionary Force
What the sentence literally means
Illocutionary Force
What the speaker is trying to do with the sentence
Perlocutionary Force
The effect the sentence actually has on the listener
Pragmatics
The study of how we understand language beyond the literal meaning
Politeness Theory
We all have a public face, use indirect requests to reduce conflict and tension
Gricean Maxims (4)
- Quality- truth
- Quantity
- Relevance
- Manner-clear ways
Implicature
Truth of one suggests the truth of the other, can be cancelled
Entailment
Something that follows logically
Presupposition
Assumption
S Family Test
Way to determine presuppositions
- Negation
- Question
- Embedding under modals (might, could, should)
- Embedding under conditional (if-clause)
Conventional implicature
Typical implicatures triggered by specific words
Conversational/ad-hoc implicature
Sentence causes an implicature in a specific context (ex: blue square, green circle, green square and only given word “green”)
Prosody
Stress and intonation patterns-can change meaning of sentence
Common ground
Mutual beliefs and knowledge shared between people
