Psycholinguistics Lec 2 COMPREHENSION COMPREHENSION SENTENCES What OF

Psycholinguistics --- Lec. 2 COMPREHENSION

COMPREHENSION SENTENCES What OF are the processes people go through in comprehending a sentence? How do they come to the rightwrong interpretation. What sort of knowledge does the process demand?

What is comprehension? Two senses In its narrow sense it denotes the mental processes by which listeners take in the sounds uttered by a speaker and use them to construct an interpretation of what they think the speaker intended to convey—the building of meanings from sounds.

Ex. The old man met his daughter’s husband. 1. the sequence of words—their order —what words denote in nature. What constitute a unit. SURFACE STRUCTURE The words, their temporal order, their grouping They have to build an interpretation. Ex. X met Y

The sound end of the process The meaning end of the process To build an interpretation that resembles the underlying presentation of a sentence. A set of propositions plus their interrrelations.

Comprehension in its broader sense. How listeners put the interpretation they have built into work. An assertion A question An order So they have additional mental processes that make use of the interpretation they have constructed so far.

The two processes The construction process The utilization process They are linked

The construction process Underlying Simple sentence presentation Sentence with variables John walks X walks John hit Bill Propositional function Walk (x) X hit y Hit (x, y)

Propositions Arguments and predicates Agents-instruments-patients-objects

Constructing interpretations Listeners take a linear sting of words and construct a hierarchy or arrangement of propositions. The old man met his daughter’s husband

Constituents Immediate constituents Ultimate constituents Units—phrases or clauses Ex. The old man met his daughter’s husband

Constructing underlying propositions Constituent proposition old man the old man underlying man old known

Preliminary outline 1. phonological representation 2. they organize the phonological representation into constituentscontent and function 3. They use constituents to construct propositions. 4. Retain them in working memory

Surface constituents Studies from various viewpoints suggest that listeners→ 1. Feel constituents to be conceptually unified. 2. use them in the organization of speech. 3. store them in working memory. 4. purge them from memory when a sentence has ended.

The conceptual unity of constituents Constituents are replaceable. Constituents must have a conceptual coherence. Ex. The boy has lost a dollar.

Constituents as aids in perception Differences between native and second language speakers. Does isolating constituents really help in perception. Graf and Torrey (1966)

Form A Form B Studies from various viewpoints suggest that listeners feel constituents to be conceptually unified.

Constituents in Working Memory Once listeners have isolated constituents, they should hold them verbatim as constituents in working memory until they have no more need for them—used them in constructing underlying propositions

Ammon (1968) The polite actor thanked the old woman who carried the black umbrella PROBE-RESPONSE ((The (polite actor)) (thanked ((the (old woman)) (who (carried (the (black umbrella)))))))

Constituents in the Construction of Propositions How early in the listening process do constituents normally become relevant? “the unit of speech perception corresponds to the constituents” (Fodor and Bever (1965)) In perception, units resist interruption to preserve their integrity. Fodor and Bever’s experiment. (Click displacement)

Real-time Processing Listeners have a limited capacity for processing what they hear in the time available. Ex. The Army officer met the young troops. Foss (1969) The travelling bassoon player found himself without funds in a strange town. The itinerant bassoon player found

Approaches to the Construction Process The constituents and their classifications are something listeners infer about the speech they hear. On what basis do they draw these inferences? The syntactic approach The semantic approach

Syntactic Approaches to the Construction Process—building up constituents. Bever (1970) Fodor and Garrett (1967) Listeners have a command of mental strategies by which they segment sentences into constituents, classify the constituents and construct semantic representations. Ex. The old man met his friend

Varieties of Strategy I Det. and quantifiers Prep. Pro. Aux. Relative pro. Comp. Subordinating conjunctions Coordinating conjunctions

Use of Function Words S 1. whenever you find a function word, begin a new constituent larger than one word. Ex. The man was leaving The problem with “that”

Anticipating content words S 2. after identifying the beginning of a constituent, look for content words appropriate to that type of constituent. Ex. The dirty old man [[the]Det [dirty]Adj [old]Adj [man] N ] NP

USE OF AFFIXES S 3: use affixes to help decide whether a content word is a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. Ex. –ly, -ity, -er, -ness. . etc

Use of verbs S 4: after encountering a verb, look for the number and kind of arguments appropriate to that verb. Ex. John hit Bill John believed …. . [N] [S]

MEMORY CAPACITY S 5: try to attach each new word to the constituent that came just before. Ex. The dog that was rabid came from New York The dog came from New York that was rabid The dog bit the fox that was rabid

CLAUSES S 6: use the first word or major constituent of a clause to identify the function of that clause in the current sentence. Halliday (1970)

S 7: assume the first clause to be a main clause unless it is marked at or prior to the main verb as something other than a main clause.

VARIETIES OF STRATEGY 6 Adverbial clauses Relative clauses Complements Wh- questions Yes/no questions Imperatives Exclamations Assertions

EVAUATION OF THE SYNTACTIC APPROACH It accounts for certain difficulties that arise from syntactic sources ( self-embedding, missing relative pronouns. . etc) Problems Listeners are assumed to make heavy use of function words. But to be used these must be identified from their sounds alone.

SEMANTIC APPROCHES TO THE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS THE REALITY AND COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES MAKING SENSE OF SENTENCES ANTICIPATING CONSTITUENTS TYING SENTENCES TO CONTEXT USE OF WORD ORDER

THE REALITY AND COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES The reality principle: is concerned with the substance of a sentence, the ideas being talked about. The cooperative principle: is concerned with the way these ideas are expressed.

MAKING SENSE SENTENCES S 8: OF using content words alone, build propositions that make sense and parse the sentence into constituents accordingly. 1. the vase that the maid that the agency hired dropped broke on the floor. 2. the dog that the cat the girl fought scolded approached the colt.

ANTICIPATING CONSTITUENTS Listeners have special strategies for searching for constituents and anticipating ones to come. Ex. John put …. . put (John, X, Y) Ex. Quickly Son In

S 9 S 9: Look for constituents that fit the semantic requirement of the propositional function that underlies each verb, noun, adjective, adverb and preposition.

TYING SENTENCES CONTEST S 10: TO look for definite noun phrases that refer to entities you know and replace the interpretation of each noun phrase by a reference to that entity directly. Ex. Sara and John climbed Mt. Mc. Kinley last summer. She photograph the peak and he surveyed it.

S 11: on finding a definite noun phrase, search memory for the entity it was meant to refer to and replace the interpretation of the noun phrase by a reference to the entity directly. Ex. John said that Bill hit him John said that Mary hit him

Use of word order S 12: look for the first n-v-n sequence to be an agent, action, and object, unless the sequence is marked otherwise. **Passive clauses S 13: look for the first two clauses to describe the first of two events , and the second clause to the second event, unless they are marked otherwise.

EVALUATION OF SEMANTIC APPROACH Advantages: THE The semantic approach exploits content words and their meaning. Disadvantages: EX. The girl picked the red flower Listeners need to find constituents that reflect propositions.

Ambiguity Ex. The farmer put the straw on a pile beside his threshing machine.