Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics Flashcards
what was early work in psycholinguistics inspired by?
chomsky (1928) which distinguished between competence and performance
competence
speaker-hearer’s knowledge of the language, inc. grammaticality judgements
performance
the actual use of language in concrete situations
grammaticality judgements…
are not the same as sensicality judgements
- people distinguish between those through their implicit knowledge of the syntactic rules of their language
what did chomsky suggest about grammar?
it is generative- a finite number of rules can generate an infinite number of sentences, due to recursion
what is recursion?
referring to itself in its definition
what does recursion allow for?
rule-governed creativity, as we cannot store all possible sentences in our heads
what is incremental parsing?
each sentence of a language can be described in terms of hierarchal groupings of its words, by using phrase structure trees/tree diagrams
on-line incremental parsing
the parser constructs a syntactic structure on the basis of words as they arrive
parsing models
- modular accounts
- interactive accounts
modular accounts (serial processing)
- syntactic information is processed individually
- subsequent processing takes other information into account, e.g., semantics
how does frazier’s (1987) garden-path model believe parsing occurs?
- minimal attachment (go for the simplest structure of fewest nodes)
- late closure (incorporate words in the currently open phrase)
attach low
attaching to the most recent constituent
interactive accounts
- all information is processed at the same time
constraint-based models
all relevant sources of information (constraints) can be used immediately to help syntactic parsing
what happens if several levels of syntactic analysis get comparable support?
parsing is difficult due to competition
how does reading evolve?
incrementally, as each incoming word is processed immediately
why must semantic processors be flexible?
to deal with the variety of inputs quickly
lexical ambiguity- what are homonyms?
words with two unrelated interpretations
selective access
context restricts access to contextually appropriate meaning
ordered access
activation on basis of meaning frequency, tried against context
parallel access
all meanings are activated
biased homonyms
when one word has a more frequent meaning
balanced homonyms
both meanings are just as frequent
what has eye-tracking research found effects of?
meaning frequency and context for lexical ambiguity
introduces the reordered access model 1988
reordered access model, duffy 1988
hybrid of access models depending on frequency and context, which can increase activation of different meanings
lexical polysemy- when does this occur?
as a case of one-too-many mapping, when lexical items have more than one semantically related meaning
metonymy
one salient part of an entity is used to refer to the entity as a whole
examples of metonymy
part-for-whole (synecdoche)
whole-for-part
place-for-institution
place-for-event
producer-for-product
what can metonymy lead to?
literal-first or figurative-first possibilities
unranked parallel models
no hierarchy in activation
ranked parallel models
activation levels depend on frequency, saliency, and basicness
what happens when metonymic sense is lexicalised?
there is no difficulty
what are pragmatics?
the distinction between what a speaker’s words literally mean compared to what they might mean by their words
what does pragmatics involve a combination of?
- word meaning for individual words, e.g., lexical ambiguity
- syntactic structure
- inferences
- individual skill
what are inferences?
the process of developing information beyond the literal meaning of text
types of inferences
- logical interferences
- bridging
- elaborative
logical interferences
based on word meaning
bridging interferences
relating new words to previous information to maintain coherence
elaborative inferences
extending the text with your own knowledge to become indistinguishable from the original material
“frame problem” in inferencing
how the current statement interacts with world knowledge, and where inferences should be stopped
approaches to inferencing
- minimalist
- constructionist
- hybrid
minimalist approach
only two kinds of inferences are encoded during automatic reading
- those necessary for local coherence
- easy available information in STM
constructionist approach
numerous elaborative inferences are drawn during reading
hybrid approach
minimalist and constructionist reading is used depending on the goals
what do language users tend to use instead of in-depth processing?
good enough heuristics
what are the models of sentence processing?
garden-path model
constraint-satisfaction model
garden-path model
the language processor computes a single syntactic analysis without considering context or plausibility
once an interpretation is made, other information evaluates its appropriateness
constraint-satisfaction model
assumes all possible syntactic analyses are computed at once for all relevant information
analysis with the greatest support is chosen over competitors
less skilled comprehenders…
- draw fewer inferences
- poorer integration of meaning across sentences
what are individual differences in comprehension related to?
- differences in verbal working memory, measured by reading span
- attention
- suppression of irrelevant or inappropriate material
what does suppression involve?
suppressing the inappropriate meaning of homonyms or rejecting the incorrect form of homophones
what does essentialism refer to?
two words with the same referent or denotations; when certain categories have an unobservable underlying reality
natural kinds
judgements are identified based on innate, underlying qualities
artefacts
judgements based on superficial, perceptual features
theory of mind involves…
the ability to understand people have different world views and mental states
this is crucial for communication and language understanding
there is evidence of _________ essentialist reasoning regardless of prompting
immediate
natural kinds (TOM)
no evidence that inferences are based on what people know automatically
artefacts (TOM)
can be explained by reader’s own perspective taking
