SYNTAX 1
DAY 30 – NOV 6, 2013
Brain & Language
LING 4110-4890-5110-7960
NSCI 4110-4891-6110
Harry Howard
Tulane University
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
2
Course organization
• The syllabus, these slides and my recordings are
available at http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/LING4110/.
• If you want to learn more about EEG and neurolinguistics,
you are welcome to participate in my lab. This is also a
good way to get started on an honor's thesis.
• The grades are posted to Blackboard.
11/06/13
REVIEW
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
3
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
4
Associations for “pig” in LH/RH terms
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
5
Summary of lateralization of word semantics
LH
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
Quickly selects most familiar or
dominant meaning (convergent
processing) while suppressing
other less closely related
meanings.
Primes words that share many
semantic features > closely
associated words.
Primes the most frequent
meaning of an ambiguous word.
Primes category, but not others.
Priming is faster with more words.
Priming is slower for unstructured
sentences.
Priming is slower for incongruent
sentences.
RH
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
Slowly selects multiple meanings
(divergent processing) that are
weakly associated.
Primes words that share few
semantic features > loosely
associated words.
Primes the less frequent meaning
of an ambiguous word.
Primes function, collectives, goaloriented classes.
Priming stays same with more
words.
Priming is same for unstructured
sentences.
Priming is same for incongruent
sentences.
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
6
Two types of semantic processing
Convergent semantic processing
i.
ii.
iii.
… in linguistic tasks which
elicit a limited number of
responses.
In such tasks, subjects must
suppress alternate
meanings or select a single
best item from many
choices.
For instance, a subject may
be presented with a noun
such as ‘hammer’ and be
asked to supply a verb,
giving the response ‘(to)
pound’.
Divergent semantic processing
i.
ii.
iii.
… in linguistic tasks which
elicit a wide number of
responses.
In such tasks, subjects must
produce alternate meanings
or list as many items as
possible.
For instance, the experiment
just mentioned can be
continued by asking the
subject to supply yet another
verb, resulting in a response
such as ‘(to) throw’.
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
7
Summary of lateralization of phonology
LH
small window of temporal integration
no overlap between windows
RH
large window of temporal integration
overlap between windows
• high temporal frequency:
• rapid cues, like stops
• low temporal frequency:
• slow cues, like vowels
• high spectral frequency:
• formants
• low spectral frequency:
• fundamental
• categorical distinctions:
• lexical, phrasal, clausal
stress;
• lexical tone in Thai/Chinese
• graded/coordinate
distinctions:
• emotional intonation,
• sentence type?
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
8
A conversion to resolution
Left hemisphere, fine coding:
9 neurons index 9 regions of space
Right hemisphere, coarse coding:
4 neurons index 12+ regions of space
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
9
Associations for “pig” in LH/RH terms
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
SENTENCE
COMPREHENSION AND
SYNTACTIC PARSING
Ingram IV. Sentence comprehension, §12
10
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Linguistic model, Fig. 2.1 p. 37
Discourse model
Sentence level
Word level
Syntax
S
E
M
A
N
T
I
C
S
Sentence prosody
Morphology
Word prosody
Segmental phonology
production
Segmental phonology
perception
Articulatory phonetics
Speech motor control
Acoustic phonetics
Feature extraction
INPUT
11
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
12
What is syntactic processing?
• “Narrowly defined, syntactic processing involves the
assignment of syntactic structure to word strings that
qualify as a ‘sentences’”. (p. 244)
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
13
What is a sentence?
• Some definitions
• A complete thought.
•
•
•
•
•
Mary kissed John.
Mary kissed.
Mary.
Kissed.
Kissed John.
• A subject and a predicate.
• Mary kissed John.
• Mary kissed.
• Mary.
• Kissed.
• Kissed John.
• A string of words starting with a capital letter and ending with a
period.
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
What we said at the beginning
• S = NP VP, or
• [S NP VP]
• [S Mary [VP kissed John]]
S
NP
Mary
V
kissed
VP
NP
John
14
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15
But …
• … we very often utter incomplete sentences:
a) Who kissed John?
b) Mary.
c) What did Mary do?
d) Kiss John.
• So the missing information can be filled in by the context:
a) Who kissed John?
b) [S Mary [VP Ø]]
c) What did Mary do?
d) [S [NP Ø] [VP kiss John]]
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
16
What is a grammar?
• “A grammar is an explicit set of rules for distinguishing the well-
formed sentences of a language from those that are ill-formed
(ungrammatical).” (p. 245)
• We have already seen a fragment of a grammar of English:
①
②
S → NP VP
VP → V NP
• Which of these strings are ill-formed (ungrammatical),
according to this grammar?
•
•
•
•
•
Mary kissed John.
* Mary kissed.
*
Mary.
* Kissed.
*
Kissed John.
11/06/13
17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Another example
• Let’s change to Ingram’s example, “A cat is on the couch.”
• We need to augment our grammar:
③ NP → Det N, where Det is one of {a(n), the, some}
④ VP → V PP
⑤ PP → P NP, where P is one of {on, in, at, by, etc.}
• Write down the syntactic structure for Ingram’s example:
• [S [NP a cat] [VP is [PP on [NP the couch]]]]
S
VP
NP
a cat
V
is
PP
on the couch
11/06/13
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
NEXT TIME
Continue with §12 Sentence comprehension and
syntactic parsing
18