The Independence of Syntactic Processing

1. The Independence of Syntactic Processing Advanced Psycholinguistics Presenter: Dong-Bo Hsu 02/09/06

2. To Verify the Modular View • What is the module? • The subcomponents of the linguistic functions • Modular Approach to Syntactic Processing • Autonomous/Independent Processing • Information Encapsulation • No semantic/thematic or pragmatic information can penetrate the initial processing

3. Modular Representation in Syntactic Processing • Minimal attachment (MA) dominates • the initial • representation • of syntactic • processing

4. The implications of MA approach in syntactic processing • 1. Reduce the memory load and efficient in processing • 2. Result in the garden path • 3. MA strategy, not influenced by non-syntactic information

5. How to Support A Modular View Experimentally • The Reasoning and Goal of the Design • 1. To demonstrate that no thematic/semantic information----initial syntactic processing • 2. Pragmatic or contextual information cannot bias the initial syntactic processing • 3. At most, contextual influence comes in in a later stage, not initial

6. Experiment I: the influence of thematic information • 1a. The defendant / examined / by the lawyer/ • c-2 c-1 c (disambiguate) • turned out / to be unreliable. • c+2 (animate, reduced) • 1b. The evidence / examined / by the lawyer / • turned out to be unreliable.

7. The Prediction • The modular view • 1. Syntactic processing- initially construct MA analysis • 2.Thematic information has no influence • 3. No processing difference in reading regions c and c+1 • 4. (possible) c-1 take longer to read, • subjects detect the anomalous nature, the evidence

8. The interactive view • 1. Thematic information can aid syntactic processing, especially in the initial stage • 2. c and c+1 will be read faster because of the aid of thematic information

9. The Apparatus and Materials • Apparatus: Dual Purkinjie Eyetracker interfaced with a Hewlett-Packard 2100 computer • 16 sentences with fillers and intermixed with 40 texts + true/false questions

10. The Measurement and Scoring Regions • First pass reading time: first left to right fixation on the character + right-to-left movement within the character • Second pass reading time: regressions and rereading of the sentences • Latin square design • Significance level .05

11. The Result

12. Discussion I • Reduced relative clause > unreduced counterpart • Animate reduced = inanimate reduced • Inanimate reduced: longer in c-1 than that in animate counterpart • Reflect MA strategy in spite of thematic information • In support of modular syntactic processing

13. Experiment II-Contextual Information • 2a. The editor played the tape / and agreed the story was big. (Minimal Attachment) • 2b. The editor played the tape / agreed the story was big. (Nonminimal Attachment) • 3a. Sam loaded the boxes on the cart / before his coffee break. (Minimal Attachment) • 3b. Sam loaded the boxes on the cart / onto the van (Nonminimal Attachment)

14. The Material

15. The Prediction • The modular view • Initially syntactic processing—MA strategy • NMA-NMA = N-NMA > MA-MA = N-MA • The interactive view • Contextual information aids syntactic processing • NMA-NMA < N-NMA; MA-MA < N-MA • N-NMA > N-MA

16. Design and Materials

17. First pass reading time per character

18. Second pass reading time per character

19. Percentage Correct

20. Result for Exp III—a replication of Exp II Self-paced Reading Paradigm

21. Alternative Explanation • 1. Prof. Garnsey’s paper • 2. The individual difference on working memory (Just & Carpenter)