Sentence Processing Flashcards
what is syntactic parsing?
how we put together words in a sentence (assigning words into grammatical categories)
what is the immediacy principle?
the principle that we immediately interpret words as we encounter them (parsing as an incremental process)
what is structural ambiguity?
a sentence or phrase is ambiguous because it can be parsed in more than one way (until further info is acquired)
what is garden path ambiguity?
a sentence that initially leads to an incorrect interpretation or parsing (ex: the man pushed through the door fell)
what reduces burden on our working memory?
- late closure
- minimal attachment
what is late closure?
the principle of trying to attach new parts of a sentence to the phrase that’s currently being processed
example of late closure?
“John said he would leave yesterday” would be parsed as John said (he would leave yesterday), and not as John said (he would leave) yesterday (i.e., he spoke yesterday).
what is minimal attachment?
the theory that listeners and readers initially attempt to interpret sentences in terms of the simplest syntactic structure consistent with the input that’s known at the moment
example of minimal attachment?
‘The girl knew the answer by heart’ and ‘The girl knew the answer was wrong,’ the minimal attachment principle leads to a grammatical structure in which ‘the answer’ is regarded as the direct object of the verb ‘knew
autonomous view on parsing?
parsing is initially performed by syntactic module and isn’t influenced by higher order contextual factors
interactive view on parsing?
we use all available info in parsing, semantics can influence parsing of a sentence (constraint)
implications for modularity in sentence parsing?
- parsing isn’t a syntactic module
- interactive processing during sentence comp may depend on individuals working memory capacity
what is surface form?
word for word, what words we’re presented with
what is time course? (sachs)
Immediate
◦ 80 syllables later (~25s)
◦ 160 syllables later
◦ Typically, we quickly lose information about the surface form
what is interactional content?
content that conveys the speakers attitude toward the listener
(ex: insults)
