Sentence Comprehension Flashcards
What are the three processes involved in sentence comprehension?
- A syntactic route - computation of a full syntactic representation for a sentences and uses this representation to assign aspects of meaning
- A heuristic route - uses a reduced syntactic structure for this purpose
- A lexic0-inferential route - inference of aspects of sentence meaning from word meanings and knowledge of real world events
What is the distinguishing difference between transitive and intransitive verbs?
Transitive - needs direct object
Intransitive - does not need direct object
Define subcategorisation, and list its characteristic structure
- the type of syntactic environment into which a verb can enter
- characterisation of the type of phrasal category that follows the verb
What is the projection principle?
Lexical representations (e.g. subcategorisation possibilities) are projected to the syntax
Discuss argument structure, and contrast it with ‘subcategorisation information’
- most sentences can be considered representations of relations between a predicate and its arguments, hence them term argument structure
- an NP or CP (sentential clause) can be an argument of a verb if it occupies what is called an argument position
Whereas subcategorisation information, argument structure is not concerned with the syntactic form of the phrasal categories a verb allows, but instead is concerned with the number of participants described by the verb
What purpose do thematic roles serve?
- answers the question ‘who did what to whom’
- each argument takes on a certain thematic role
- each verb selects sets of thematic roles assigned to its arguments; each set of roles is called a thematic grid
Discuss the Trace-Theory, in terms of what the ‘trace’ is and how it is processed linguistically
- the ‘trace’ is the ghost that is left behind when the NP moves: it is a lexically unfilled position acting as a ‘place holder’
- the trace is then linked or co-indexed with the moved category, forming a co-reference relation between the two positions
What is the heuristic route?
- the use of short cuts based on simple syntactic analysis
- using heuristic of word order i.e., the words that immediately precedes a verb is usually the agent
What is the lexico-inferential route?
- the use of knowledge of the world, pragmatic information, etc. to understand the meaning of a sentence
What are the levels in the Garret model of sentence comprehension?
- auditory level representation
- phonetic level representation
-positional level representation - functional level representation
- message level representation
Elaborate on what occurs at the 1. positional and 2. functional level representations of Garret’s model of sentence comprehension
- Positional
- decoding phonological word form
- identification of syntactic structure - Functional
- word meaning retrieval
-identification of predicate-argument structure
- lexical items assigned to thematic roles
What is Friederici’s Model (sentence comprehension)?
- First-prase syntactic parsing
- Syntactic and lexical-semantic information are integrated and mapped on to each other
- Secondary syntactic processing
Agrammatic comprehension can result from difficulties in . . .
a) syntactic parsing
b) lexical look-up for thematic assignment of the verb
c) mapping syntactic phrases onto thematic roles
Elaborate on the three causes for agrammatic sentence comprehension
a) syntactic parsing
- patient cannot achieve an adequate parse of the sentence, either because their syntactic knowledge is compromised or because they are unable to compute hierarchical phrasal categories, or because of difficulty processing grammatical morphemes
b) lexical look-up for thematic assignment of the verb
- potentially have a problem with knowledge of the thematic assignments of certain verbs
c) mapping syntactic phrases onto thematic roles
-potentially: system breakdowns at the point where the products of the structural parse are mapped onto representations at deep structure that reflects meaning relations
List some ‘determinants of sentence complexity’ and explain why they have an impact on sentence comprehension
- noncanonical order
- semantic reversibility
- number of lexical verbs
- presence of embedded clauses
- NP taking 2 diff. thematic roles
Show additive effects, as they consume more computational and storage resources as they become more complex
What does syntactic comprehension assessment give insight into?
- phrase structure rules and parsing efficiency
- inflectional processing
- verb semantics
- verb-argument and mapping processes
- working memory efficiency
- timing alterations
What are the language-based treatments for syntactic comprehension deficits? What is the principle of these treatments?
- mapping therapy
- verb (semantic therapy)
- treatment of the underlying forms
- direct targeting of underlying language impairment
What are some treatment goals for verb therapy?
- stabilise and strengthen the representational system for the semantic properties of verbs
- target verb-argument structure and thematic properties, to ensure strengthened transmission to the Functional Level of sentence production
What are the three approaches to verb therapy, and which have the best outcomes (re. generalisation)?
- Semantic-reactivational
- Verb-retrieval training
- Functional-argument structure
- and 3.
What are some options involved in semantic-reactivational approaches?
- semantic networks with choice
- semantic networks without choice
- role semantic network without choice
- verb-picture matching
-odd-one-outs - probe questioning: visualisation
- Semantic Feature Analysis
- Cued Naming
What does mapping therapy target, and at which level of the models of sentence comprehension?
- process of relating relating verb-arguments to thematic roles
- functional level/Stage 2 Friederici processes
What are the subtypes of Mapping Therapy?
- verb-centered therapies
- sentence query
- sentence ordering
- locative maps
List parameters to manipulate in syntactic therapies
Verbs: argument structure, thematic grid
Sentence type: reversible, pragmatic plausibility, canonicity, number of phrasal constituents
