Understanding a Sentence Parse left to right Immediacy Principle Build structures as words are encountered Assume you have a grammatical sentence (Requires reanalysis for Garden Path Sentences) Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 131 ff.

Left to Right Parsing Ambiguities The old yellow ship can float . Art N N N N N Adj Adj V V V V Mod

Garden Path Sentences 1. The florist sent the flowers | was very pleased 2. Since Jay always jogs a mile | seems like a very short distance to him. Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, pp. 132-133.

Late Closure 1. Tom said that Harry took the trash out yesterday. 2. James put the book Marie was reading in the library [on the table]. 3. Fiona discovered on Monday the penguin had hurt its foot. 4. The man the girl the boy met believed laughed. Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 133. Aitchison, Jean. 1998. The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London: Routledge, pp. 211-212.

Late Closure (Newspaper Headline) Ban on Nude Dancing on Governor's Desk Leno, Jay. Headlines.

Late Closure (Frank and Ernest) Ashcraft, Mark H. 1994. Human Memory and Cognition, second edition. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, p. 432.

Minimal Attachment 1. Ernie kissed Marcie and her sister … 2. The city council argued the mayor's position forcefully. 3. The city council argued the mayor's position was correct. 4. The lion paraded through the town escaped. Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 134. Aitchison, Jean. 1998. The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London: Routledge, p. 211.

Summary of Sentence Processing Strategies 1. "Divide each sentence up into sentoids by looking for NP—V (—NP) sequences ('canonical sentoid strategy') 2. Interpret an NP—V—NP sequence as actor — action — object. 3. Interpret the first clause as the main clause. 4. Use your knowledge of the world to pick the most likely interpretation. " Aitchison, Jean. 1998. The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London: Routledge, p. 209.

Sentences Violating a Sentence Processing Strategy 1. After rushing across the field the bull tossed Harry. 2. The van was hit by the bus, and the car was rammed by a taxi. 3. The postman bit the dog, and the baby scratched the cat. 4. The shark pushed through the seaweed was attacked by the tadpole. Aitchison, Jean. 1998. The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London: Routledge, pp. 209-210.

Modularity vs Interactive Parsing Interactive support: 1. If you walk too near the runway, landing planes ARE/IS… 2. If you've been trained as a pilot, landing planes IS/ARE… Modular support: 3. The florist sent the flowers was very pleased. 4. The performer sent the flowers was very pleased.

Sentence Comprehension Model 1. Parse the sentence 2. Look words up in mental lexicon as they are presented 3. Access meaning and grammatical categories (activating related nodes along the way) 4. Construct a syntactic representation [we use trees when we diagram them] 5. Sentence meaning is built up from the meaning of the component words and sentence structure

Grice's Maxims of Conversation 1. Quantity Be informative 2. Quality Be truthful 3. Relation Be relevant 4. Manner Be clear Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 139.

Speech Acts: Function and Form Speech Act Sentence Type Function Form assertions declarative questions interrogative orders imperative requests imperative

Stage Model of the Interpretation of Indirect Speech Acts (Searle, 1975) 1. Listener extracts literal meaning. 2. Listener decides if the literal meaning is what was intended 3. If not, listener computes intent using context and communicative conventions Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 141.

Stage Model of the Interpretation of Metaphors (Grice, 1975; Miller, 1979; Searle, 1979) 1. Listener recognizes that sentence is not literally true 2. Listener searches for another possible meaning using convention of quality Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 143.

Factors in Memory for Sentences -1 1. We store the meaning (or "gist") 2. We do not seem to retain the exact form (except for "pragmatically striking" utterances) 3. We tend to draw (non-linguistic) inferences and store these 4. Stored inferences tend to be remembered as WHAT we heard rather than an inference based on what we heard.

Factors in Memory for Sentences -2 "All of these considerations suggest that a linguistically based representational system (such as deep structure in transformational grammar) is a poor candidate for a model of sentence memory." Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 151.

Propositions (61) George hit Harry. (62) Hit (George, Harry) (63) Harry was hit by George. (64) It was Harry who was hit by George. (65) The one who hit Harry was George. Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 151.

Form of Propositions PREDICATE ( Arg1 (,Arg2) (,Arg3) ) Predicate = V, Adj, Conj Argument = N, ProN Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language, third edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, p. 396.