chapter 9 understanding sentence structure and meaning

Question 1

parsing

Answer 1

• process of assigning syntactic structure to incoming words of a sentence during lang comprehension

Question 2

incrementally

Answer 2

property of synthesizing and building meaning ‘on the fly’ based on partial info as speech unfold, rather than delaying progress until all info has accumulated

Question 3

shadowing task

Answer 3

task where ppl are asked to repeat words of a speaker’s sentence almost as quickly as the speaker produces them (verbatim)

Question 4

convenient term for the collection of structure-building mechanisms and procedures

Answer 4

the parser

Question 5

garden path sentences

Answer 5

• sentences that are difficult to understand bc they contain a temporary ambiguity
• leading reader down garden path then veering in other direction
• initially interpreted one way then experience confusion when it turns grammatically incompatible later on

Question 6

reduced relative clause

Answer 6

• grammatical structure in english involving a relative clause in which certain function words have been omitted
• can lead to ambiguity (horse raced past the barn vs horse that was raced past the barn)

Question 7

direct object

Answer 7

noun phrase that appears inside of the VP to the right of the verb

Question 8

indirect object

Answer 8

• two noun phrases that occur inside a VP
• one is the direct object and the other is the indirect object

Question 9

sentence complement

Answer 9

clause or sentence unit that appears inside the verb phrase to the right of the verb

Question 10

relative clause

Answer 10

• sentence unit that is embedded within a NP
• usually introduced by a relative pronun (ie who or that)

Question 11

main vs subordinate clauses

Answer 11

main: top of the tree, sentence that is default
sub: embedded inside other phrases

Question 12

how is the garden path effect detected

Answer 12

measuring how long ppl take to read the disambiguating region of the sentence with other alternatives having been ruled out

Question 13

moving window paradigm

Answer 13

version of self paced reading task where dashes replace the words in a sentence and participants press buttons to reveal the words

Question 14

spill over effects in reading

Answer 14

reading time that should be recorded for a phrase ends up being recorded for the next one instead (ppl try to catch up)

Question 15

what is the higher tech version of self paced reading task

Answer 15

eye movement tracking

Question 16

what can elevate reading times

Answer 16

• uncommon words used
• sentence depicts unexpected event
• low frequency structure is used
• sentence is unnatural in context

Question 17

garden path theory

Answer 17

• theory of parsing that claims that an initial ‘first pass’ structure is built during comprehension using a restricted amount of grammatical info and guided by certain parsing principals or tendencies such as the tendency to build the easiest structure possible
• ppl prefer easier structures

Question 18

heuristics

Answer 18

shallow but very fast info processing shortcuts that often lead to incorrect conclusions based on superficial cues

Question 19

representative vs availability heuristic

Answer 19

rep: base estimates of likelihood of category based on judgements of surface plausibility and disregard stat prob
avail: estimates of frequency based on how easily examples come to mind

Question 20

modular vs interactive systems

Answer 20

modular: fast and cheap (not fully informed and higher ups make decisions)
interactive: flexible and smarter (not cost effective, everyone does all parts)

Question 21

main competitor to the garden path theory

Answer 21

constraint based approach (claims many interpretations of ambiguous structure are simultaneously evaluated against range of info sources that affect early decisions)
- sources overwhelm and inhibit the other option

Question 22

garden vs constraint based

Answer 22

garden: comprehension mishaps come from limitations on human cognition that force parser to make decisions w out evidence
constraint: parser considered all evidence but made rational prediction based on previous experience w language

Question 23

thematic relations

Answer 23

knowledge of verbs that capture info about the events they describe incl how many and what kinds of ppl are involved in the events and the roles of ppl at play

Question 24

intransitive verb

Answer 24

occur with a subject and no direct object (ex fall)

Question 25

transitive verb

Answer 25

take both subject and direct object (ex burried)

Question 26

ditransitive verb

Answer 26

occur with a direct and indirect object (ex put)

Question 27

sentential complement verbs

Answer 27

verbs that intro a clause rather than a direct object noun phrase (ex said)

Question 28

what happened in a study where people were primed w direct or Sentential complement-biased words

Answer 28

- they were slower to read sentences when primed w direct object verb - When the priming verb matched the correct structure (sentential complement), the slowdown was smaller.

Question 29

prosody

Answer 29

rhythm, stress, and intonation of a spoken phrase/sentence

Question 30

japanese case markers

Answer 30

bc the verb is at the of the sentence, the objects have markers - in a study, when lang was consistent w proper marker, ppl anticipated the sentence but did not when it was not marked properly

Question 31

why are eye trackers better

Answer 31

- they show judgements made as sound is produced, more accurate rather than waiting until after - con: they have to have visual component

Question 32

N400 and early prediction

Answer 32

- unexpected - shown at 'an' rather than the word itself since predicted work would use 'a'

Question 33

surprisal

Answer 33

- measure thats inversely related to stat predictability of of an event such as a particular cont of a sentence - processing difficulty is thought to reflect he degree of surprisal at specific points in the sentence so less predictable continuations result in more processing difficulty

Question 34

levels of surprisal

Answer 34

low: probable intermediate: possible and considered high: improbable

Question 35

in children and adults, rather than age, _____ was associated with speed of predictive processing

Answer 35

vocab size