GRS LX 865 Topics in Linguistics

1. GRS LX 865Topics in Linguistics Week 9. Sentence processingand Linger

2. What are we trying to determine? • Your task for today was to create items for the Linger experiment that take the form: • PN1 verb [CPthat PN2 verb XXX YYY ZZZ… • When XXX is a pronoun, it matches PN1 in gender; when XXX is an anaphor, it matches PN2 in gender; and… • a: XXX is a pronoun, PN1 and PN2don’t match in gender. • b: XXX is a pronoun, PN1 and PN2match in gender. • c: XXX is an anaphor, PN1 and PN2match in gender. • d: XXX is an anaphor, PN1 and PN2don’t match in gender. • Binding theory says that PN2 shouldn’t matter for a-b, PN1 shouldn’t matter for c-d. How soon does BT remove these as candidate antecedents?

3. How can we tell? • PN1 verb [CPthat PN2 verb XXX YYY ZZZ… • a: XXX is a pronoun, PN1 and PN2don’t match in gender. • b: XXX is a pronoun, PN1 and PN2match in gender. • c: XXX is an anaphor, PN1 and PN2match in gender. • d: XXX is an anaphor, PN1 and PN2don’t match in gender. • Is there a difference between a and b? • Is there a difference between c and d? • Is there a difference between a-b and c-d?

4. Factoring out variation • To determine if “there is a difference” between any of these conditions, we need to be very careful to try to minimize and isolate the kind of variation we find. • Part of that can be done with the items: we want them to be as consistent as possible, differing only in the properties we’re investigating. • To that end…

5. Items • # binding3 1 aCindy and Patrick ran over to the teacher.Patrick said that Cindy cut him with a pair of scissors.? Did Patrick run? Y • Context sentence: Introduce the individuals so we don’t have both whatever processing there normally is for a proper name and the construction of a referent in the reader’s model of the world. • Bisyllabic names: In case it takes longer to read/process bisyllabic names than monosyllabic names, all names have been changed to be two syllables (and have a clear gender). • Answerable questions: Make the questions actually follow from what the subject read. E.g., not Did Cindy cut Patrick?.

6. Items • # binding3 1 aCindy and Patrick ran over to the teacher.Patrick said that Cindy cut him with a pair of scissors.? Did Patrick run? Y • # binding3 10 aAmy and Marcus worked together well, but one thing bothered Amy.Amy wished that Marcus would trust her more with important decisions.? Does Amy want to be trusted more? Y • # binding3 17 dThe long drive to Cleveland was just beginning.John didn’t think that Annie would write herself a letter.? Was the drive to Cleveland almost over? N • Comparison: Think about how we need to do this. We’ll be looking at all of the sentences in condition a to see if there is a delay at the point of herself/her/himself/him(or just after). So, what word is it? Ah. • Tags: I didn’t use tags here, but this is where they would be useful. • Amy@n1 wished@v1 that@c Marcus@n2 would trust@v2 her@prn more@aft… • This would allow us to compare the time on “v2” wherever it is.

7. Lingalyzer condition files • To use Lingalyzer on a set of data collected by Linger, we need to tell it what the conditions of the experiment looked like. This is done in the condition file. • Here we have four conditions: • a. pronoun mismatch • b. pronoun match • c. anaphor match • d. anaphor mismatch

8. Lingalyzer condition files • set COND_NAME “binding3 a”set ANOVA_FACTORS “pronoun mismatch”set GRAPH_LABEL “A) pronoun mismatch”set REGIONS “1:1-3 2:4 3:5 4:6 5:7 6:8 7:9-99”addCondition • Patrick said that Cindy cut him with a pair of scissors. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 • COND_NAME must match the experiment name and the condition name in your items file.

9. Lingalyzer:Preprocessing subjects • MacOS X instructions: • Terminal:get to the experiment directory (e.g., Binding3). • ln -s ../../Lingalyzer/lingalyzer • ln -s ../../Lingalyzer/anova • ln -s ../../Lingalyzer/regress • Steps above need only been done once… • ./lingalyzer binding3.cnd -f '[eq $EXPT filler]' -p ../Results • Recommendation about which subjects to remove (lower than 66% correct answers on the fillers), reading time over 2.5 standard deviations above the mean on the fillers. • To actually drop a subject, remove the .dat file from the Results folder.

10. Lingalyzer: Collect the data • The next step prior to a full-on analysis of the data we have is to gather it together into a single file. • This “pre-processing” is invoked by doing this: • ./lingalyzer binding3.cnd -c ../Results • This can take a little while, depending on how many subjects and items you have. What it is doing is computing statistical information about the success subjects had on question-answering, and about subjects’ reading times.

11. Lingalyzer: Querying the data • Once the pre-processing is done, there are several different things we can ask about. • Options for a lingalyzer call: • -i sets independent variables ($EXPT, $COND, $ITEM, $SUBJ, $RNUM) • -d sets dependent variables ($RWRT, $RSRT, $QCRC) • -f sets the filter (which data points to considering) • -r indicates we care about reading time. • -q indicates that we care about answer correctness. • file (creates file.avg)

12. Computing ANOVAs • Options for a lingalyzer call: • -i sets independent variables, first is the random var., $ANOV will use ANOVA_FACTORS from the .cnd file. • -d sets dependent variable (just one, e.g., $RSRT) • -f sets the filter (which data points to considering) • -a ANOVA mode, must precede -r or -q, followed by list of column headings. • -r indicates we care about reading time. • -q indicates that we care about answer correctness. • file (creates file.anv is the input, file.anova is the output)

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