Sentence Production

Why is sentence production interesting? The storage space of the brain is finite. This means that it cannot store the infinite number of sentences that we may ever need to produce. From this it follows that we must somehow construct sentences from smaller parts or units before we are able to say them. The main issues then concern the processes by which units come to be selected and then combined in a particular order.

Processes of Speech Production (after Levelt 1989) Conceptualization Formulation ( Lexicalization / Syntactic Planning) Articulation

Conceptualization The speaker must decide on the message to be conveyed. Very little is known about this stage. The end point is a stage at which the message itself has been decided but it has no linguistic form. It is also called the preverbal message or the message level of representation. This stage is often represented by a thought bubble.

Formulation The speaker must convert their message into a linguistic form. This stage involves Lexicalisation – selecting the appropriate word Syntactic planning – putting the words in the right order and adding grammatical elements.

Articulation / Execution The speaker must plan the motor movements needed to convey the message.

Where does our evidence come from? It’s hard to study speech production as it’s very difficult to get inside someone’s head as they plan a sentence. Normal speech Speech errors Dysfluencies ‘Lab speech’ Speech Errors Non-normal speech Aphasic Speech

Speech Errors (Slips of the tongue) These are the types of errors that are relatively common in normal speech production. Errors are categorised by the mechanism and the unit involved in the error.

Deletion A unit is missed out from the intended target 1. The chimney catches fire  The chimney catch fire (affix deletion) 2. Background lighting  Backgound lighting (phoneme deletion)

Perseveration A unit occurs both in the right place and later in the utterance 3. A phonological rule  A phonological fool (phoneme /f/)

Anticipation A unit occurs in the right place and earlier in the utterance 4. A reading list  A leading list (phoneme /l/ anticipation)

Exchange Two units are swapped over 5. Do you feel really bad  Do you reel feally bad (phoneme/onset exchange) 6. Guess whose name came to mind  Guess whose mind came to name (word exchange) 7. I sampled some randomly  I randomed some samply (morpheme exchange)

Blend Two units are combined 8. The children / young of today  The chung of today (word blend) 9. Miss you very much / a great deal  Miss you a very much (phrase blend)

Substitution A word is substituted for a different word 10. Give me a spoon  Give me a fork 11. I think they are equivalent  I think they are equivocal 12. Get me the catalogue  Get me the calendar

Cognitive Intrusions Units from outside the message level are inserted into the utterance 13. I’ve read all my library books  I’ve eaten all my library books (produced when the speaker was hungry) 14. Get out of the car  Get out of the clark (produced when the speaker was looking at a shop called Clark’s)

Hesitation analysis We make lots of pauses while we speak. Sometimes these pauses are periods of silence (unfilled pauses) or they may contain repetitions or items such as ‘umm’ or ‘I mean’ (filled pauses).

1: Pauses before words These pauses seem to be to do with retrieving individual words They occur more frequently and are longer before words that are less predictable. During such pauses people often make appropriate hand gestures that describe the word they are about to say. Such pauses are sometimes described as a difficulty in microplanning

Tip-of-the-tongue state (TOT) This state is an extreme version of a microplanning pause. The speaker knows they know what the word is (they have a ‘feeling of knowing’) and can provide semantic information about it but cannot remember the exact phonological form. Speakers may know some information about the phonological form (such as first sound or number of syllables) or produce interlopers (near phonological neighbours).  

2: Pauses for sentence planning These pauses seem to be to do with planning the syntactic and semantic content of speech. There are fluent and hesitant phases of production. There are more and longer pauses in the hesitant phases. There are more of these pauses if the task is difficult or there is a high cognitive load. These pauses are sometime described as difficulties in macroplanning.

Syntactic Planning When we speak we must put our words in a certain order and add grammatical elements to our utterance.