Understanding a Sentence
•Parse left to right
•Immediacy Principle
Build structures as words are encountered
•Assume you have a grammatical sentence
(Requires reanalysis for Garden
Path Sentences)
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove:
Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 131 ff.
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Left to Right
Parsing Ambiguities
The old yellow ship can float .
Art N
N
N N N
Adj
Adj V V V
V
Mod
2
Garden Path Sentences
1. The florist sent the flowers | was very
pleased
2. Since Jay always jogs a mile | seems
like a very short distance to him.
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
3
Publishing Company, pp. 132-133.
Late Closure
1. Tom said that Harry took the trash out yesterday.
2. James put the book Marie was reading in the library
[on the table].
3. Fiona discovered on Monday the penguin had hurt
its foot.
4. The man the girl the boy met believed laughed.
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 133.
Aitchison, Jean. 1998. The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London:
4
Routledge, pp. 211-212.
Late Closure
(Newspaper Headline)
Ban on Nude Dancing on Governor's
Desk
Leno, Jay. Headlines.
5
Late Closure
(Frank and Ernest)
Ashcraft, Mark H.
1994. Human
Memory and
Cognition,
second edition.
New York:
Harper Collins
College
Publishers, p.
432.
6
Minimal Attachment
1. Ernie kissed Marcie and her sister …
2. The city council argued the mayor's position
forcefully.
3. The city council argued the mayor's position
was correct.
4. The lion paraded through the town escaped.
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 134.
Aitchison, Jean. 1998. The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London:
7
Routledge, p. 211.
Summary of Sentence
Processing Strategies
1. "Divide each sentence up into sentoids by
looking for NP—V (—NP) sequences
('canonical sentoid strategy')
2. Interpret an NP—V—NP sequence as
actor — action — object.
3. Interpret the first clause as the main clause.
4. Use your knowledge of the world to pick the
most likely interpretation. "
Aitchison, Jean. 1998. The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics.
London: Routledge, p. 209.
8
Sentences Violating
a Sentence Processing Strategy
1. After rushing across the field the bull tossed
Harry.
2. The van was hit by the bus, and the car was
rammed by a taxi.
3. The postman bit the dog, and the baby
scratched the cat.
4. The shark pushed through the seaweed was
attacked by the tadpole.
Aitchison, Jean. 1998. The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics.
London: Routledge, pp. 209-210.
9
Modularity vs Interactive Parsing
Interactive support:
1. If you walk too near the runway, landing
planes ARE/IS…
2. If you've been trained as a pilot, landing
planes IS/ARE…
Modular support:
3. The florist sent the flowers was very pleased.
4. The performer sent the flowers was very
pleased.
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Sentence Comprehension Model
1. Parse the sentence
2. Look words up in mental lexicon as they are
presented
3. Access meaning and grammatical categories
(activating related nodes along the way)
4. Construct a syntactic representation [we use
trees when we diagram them]
5. Sentence meaning is built up from the meaning
of the component words and sentence structure
11
Grice's Maxims of Conversation
1. Quantity
Be informative
2. Quality
Be truthful
3. Relation
Be relevant
4. Manner
Be clear
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 139.
12
Speech Acts:
Function and Form
Speech Act
Sentence Type
Function
Form
assertions
declarative
questions
interrogative
orders
imperative
requests
imperative
13
Stage Model of the Interpretation
of Indirect Speech Acts
(Searle, 1975)
1. Listener extracts literal meaning.
2. Listener decides if the literal meaning is what
was intended
3. If not, listener computes intent using context
and communicative conventions
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
14
Publishing Company, p. 141.
Stage Model of the Interpretation
of Metaphors
(Grice, 1975; Miller, 1979; Searle, 1979)
1. Listener recognizes that sentence is not
literally true
2. Listener searches for another possible
meaning using convention of quality
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 143.
15
Factors in Memory
for Sentences -1
1. We store the meaning (or "gist")
2. We do not seem to retain the exact form
(except for "pragmatically striking" utterances)
3. We tend to draw (non-linguistic) inferences
and store these
4. Stored inferences tend to be remembered as
WHAT we heard rather than an inference
based on what we heard.
16
Factors in Memory
for Sentences -2
"All of these considerations suggest that a
linguistically based representational system
(such as deep structure in transformational
grammar) is a poor candidate for a model of
sentence memory."
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 151.
17
Propositions
(61) George hit Harry.
(62) Hit (George, Harry)
(63) Harry was hit by George.
(64) It was Harry who was hit by George.
(65) The one who hit Harry was George.
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
18
Publishing Company, p. 151.
Form of Propositions
PREDICATE ( Arg1 (,Arg2) (,Arg3) )
Predicate =
V, Adj, Conj
Argument =
N, ProN
Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole
19
Publishing Company, p. 396.