Public service announcement What is a Ponzi scheme? How is the passive voice formed? (someone) ended the Ponzi scheme quickly. AGENT THEME The Ponzi scheme was ended quickly Two sentences later, Madoff said, "When I began the Ponzi scheme, I believed it would end shortly, and I would be able to extricate myself, and my clients, from the scheme." As he read this, he betrayed no sense of how absurd it was to use the passive voice in regard to his scheme, as if it were a spell of bad weather that had descended on him... In most of the rest of the statement, one not only heard the aggrieved passive voice, but felt the hand of a lawyer: "To the best of my recollection, my fraud began in the early nineteen-nineties."[9] 11/11/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 1

SYNTAX 3 DAY 32 – NOV 11, 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. 11/11/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 3

REVIEW The quiz was the review. 11/11/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 4

SENTENCE COMPREHENSION AND SYNTACTIC PARSING Ingram IV. Sentence comprehension, §12 11/11/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 5

10/17/11Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 6 Complex sentences: Ellipsis 11) The elephant hit the rabbit and … hugged the bear.NP 1 V NP 2 … V NP 3 12) The elephant that … hit the rabbit hugged the bear.NP 1 … V NP 2 V NP 3 13) The elephant hit the rabbit that … hugged the bear.NP 1 V NP 2 … V NP 3 14) The elephant that the rabbit hit … hugged the bear.NP 1 NP 2 V … V NP 3 15) The elephant hit the rabbit that the bear chased ….NP 1 V NP 2 NP 3 V … Ellipsis makes language more economical, but for full semantic interpretation, the elided material must be recovered. Which roles should be most difficult for agrammatic aphasiacs? AGENT of the first verb? RECIPIENT/THEME of the first verb? AGENT of the second verb? RECIPIENT/THEME of the second verb? 11/11/13 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 6

NEXT TIME Ingram §13 On-line processing, working memory and modularity 11/11/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 7