SYNTAX 2 DAY 31 – NOV 08, 2013 Brain & Language LING NSCI Harry Howard Tulane University

Course organization The syllabus, these slides and my recordings are available at If you want to learn more about EEG and neurolinguistics, you are welcome to participate in my lab. This is also a good way to get started on an honor's thesis. The grades are posted to Blackboard. 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 2

REVIEW 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 3

Linguistic model, Fig. 2.1 p /08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 4 Discourse model Syntax Sentence prosody Morphology Word prosody Segmental phonology perception Segmental phonology perception Acoustic phonetics Feature extraction Segmental phonology production Segmental phonology production Articulatory phonetics Speech motor control INPUT Sentence level Word level

Example of syntactic structure A fragment of English grammar ① S → NP VP ② VP → V NP ③ NP → Det N, where Det is one of {a(n), the, some} ④ VP → V PP ⑤ PP → P NP, where P is one of {on, in, at, by, etc.} [ S [ NP a cat] [ VP is [ PP on [ NP the couch]]]] 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 5 S NP a cat VP V is PP on the couch

SENTENCE COMPREHENSION AND SYNTACTIC PARSING Ingram IV. Sentence comprehension, §12 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 6

The problem of assigning syntactic structure in real time So, how did you do that? You assigned a syntactic (or structural) description to the sentence, following the rules of the grammar, presumably from left to right, which is a process known as performing a derivation. It is also known as parsing the sentence: "to state the parts of speech in a sentence”, 1550s, verb use of M.E. pars (n.) "part of speech" (c.1300), from O.Fr. pars, pl. of part "part”, from L. pars (see part (n.)) in school question, Quae pars orationis? "What part of speech?"part 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 7

Start with the first word Ingram p. 246, Fig A – what do we know about it? Determiner, indefinite, singular Ingram calls this Lexical Access and Feature Retrieval (LAFR) What does our grammar tell us about a determiner (Det)? It is followed by a noun, so let’s look for one to the right. And by the way, it should be singular, to agree with the determiner. Cat – what do we know about it? Noun, singular (LAFR) We also know a lot about the meaning of ‘cat’, but this theory of syntax assumes that meaning is not relevant to the parse. What does our grammar tell us about Det+N? That they form an NP, so let’s merge them into one: [ NP [ Det a] [ N cat]] What does our grammar tell us about NP? It is followed by a (tensed) verb, so let’s seek one to the right. Do the rest of the derivation yourself. Skip the one on p /08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 8

Models of sentence processing Traditional generative model A separate mental module parses sentences just like we just did. Lexical access happens first. Then one syntactic hypothesis is considered at a time. There is no influence of meaning. More recent interactive model There is no separate module for parsing Lexical access, syntactic structure assignment, and meaning assignment happen at the same time (in parallel). Several syntactic hypotheses can be considered at a time. How to decide? Agrammatism 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 9

But first, a review: Thematic roles What is a thematic role? List of roles AGENT EXPERIENCER THEME GOAL SOURCE LOCATION RECIPIENT INSTRUMENT 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 10

Review: Thematic roles a. John gave a tomato to Mary. b. John gave Mary a tomato. c. A brilliant idea occurred to Mary. d. Mary hates tomatoes. a. AGENT gave THEME to RECEIPIENT b. AGENT gave RECEIPIENT THEME c. THEME occurred to EXPERIENCER d. EXPERIENCER hates THEME 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 11

Syntax vs pragmatics How about these? (p. 251) 1) The cop arrested the teenagers. 2) The teenagers arrested the cop. How can we tell the difference? Syntactic info: Subject agrees with verb; subject precedes verb; subject tends to be AGENT. Direct object follows verb; direct object tends to be THEME. Pragmatic info: Police are typical arresters; teenagers are typical arrestees. Note that syntax overrides pragmatics in (2). 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 12

11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 13 Review: language areas of the brain

11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 14 The Broca-Wernicke-Lichtheim model (of the LH)

The two main aphasias Ingram p. 49 Broca’s C: What brought you to the hospital? P: yes … ah … Monday … ah … Dad … Peter Hogan, and Dad … ah … hospital … and ah … Wednesday … Wednesday … nine o’clock and ah Thursday … ten o’clock … doctors two … two … an doctors and … ah … teeth … yah … and a doctor an girl … and gums, an I. Wernicke’s C: What brings you to the hospital? Boy, I’m sweating, I’m awful nervous, you know, once in a while I get caught up, I can’t mention the tarripote, a month ago, quite a little, I’ve done a lot well, I impose a lot, while on the other hand, you know what I mean, I have to run around, look it over, trebbin and all that sort of stuff. 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 15

Agrammatic aphasia (agrammatism) One aspect of Broca’s aphasia Agrammatic aphasiacs may overlook agreement, but they are still sensitive to word order. However, they often rely on pragmatics, so they may understand (2) to mean (1): 1) The cop arrested the teenagers. 2) The teenagers arrested the cop. 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 16

Active vs. passive sentences Ask the patient to point to the picture in which The dog bit the postman. The dog was bitten by the postman. 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 17

Reversible sentences Agrammatic aphasiacs find the following reversible active sentences to be difficult to understand (75% accuracy): 3) The dancer applauded the actor. 4) The actor applauded the dancer. Reversible passive sentences are even harder (50% accuracy): 5) The actor was applauded by the dancer. 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 18

Conclusions It may be that agrammatic aphasiacs rely on a rule of thumb (heuristic) based on the canonical word order of English or other frequent coincidences: a) The NP which precedes the verb is assigned the thematic role of AGENT. b) The NP which follows the preposition by is assigned the thematic role of AGENT. How they help (a) helps agrammatic aphasiacs understand reversible active sentences. (a) and (b) conflict in reversible passive sentences, so agrammatic aphasiacs do worse (they guess). 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 19

Complex sentences: Clefting Clefting (p. 253) 8) The monkey chased the frog. 9) It was the monkey that chased the frog. –– cleft subject, cf (8) 10) It was the frog that the monkey chased. –– cleft object, cf (8) Which one should be more difficult for agrammatic aphasiacs? (9) 100% correct (10) 33% correct 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 20

NEXT TIME Q9. Continue with §12 Sentence comprehension and syntactic parsing 11/08/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 21