1. Combinatorial net 2 Syntax 4 Nov 15, 2017 – DAY 33
Brain & Language
LING
NSCI
Harry Howard
Tulane University

2. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Course organization
TODAY:
Fun with

3. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Quiz stats P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9
P10
P11
tot
MIN 4 5 6
AVG
7.7
8.2
8.4
9.1
9.0
8.8
MAX 10

4. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Final project
Improve a Wikipedia article about any of the topics mentioned in class or any other topic broadly related to neurolinguistics.
Write a short essay explaining what you did and why you did it.
Print the article before you improve it, highlighting any subtractions.
Print the article after you improve it, highlighting your additions.

5. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Combinatorial net 2

6. Procedural vs declarative memory in the combinatorial nets
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Procedural vs declarative memory in the combinatorial nets
t11-HickokPoeppelHoward2

7. My favorite attachment or syntactic ambiguity
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
My favorite attachment or syntactic ambiguity
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
What an elephant was doing in my pajamas, I'll never know.
I [[shot an elephant] in my pajamas]
I shot an [[elephant] in my pajamas]
[note that this is the 2nd example on the recording]

8. A diagram of the difference
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
A diagram of the difference S NP I VP PP
in my pajamas V
shot
an elephant S NP I VP V
shot
Det an N
elephant PP
in my pajamas

9. Minimal attachment principle
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Minimal attachment principle
Avoid unnecessary embedding (i.e. attach an element as high in the tree as possible).
Now let's look at a lot more examples.

10. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
syntax 4
Ingram I, §13 On-line processing, working memory and modularity
Sentence comprehension and syntactic parsing

11. Another attachment ambiguity
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Another attachment ambiguity
the house on the hill by the sea
What is by the sea?
the [[house on the hill] by the sea]
<the house is on the hill and the house is by the sea>
the house on the [[hill] by the sea]
<the house is on the hill and the hill is by the sea>
Which reading did you get first?
Ingram's (21)

12. A diagram of the difference
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
A diagram of the difference PP
by the sea NP
Det
the N
house
on the hill NP
Det
the N
house P on PP
by the sea
hill

13. More examples of ambiguous sentences
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
More examples of ambiguous sentences
Paraphrase how you understand this sentence (but do not say it out loud!):
(25) John told the girl that Bill liked the story.
(27) John told the story to the girl that Bill liked.
= relative clause reading
John told the girl [S that Bill liked] the story
(26) John told the girl something – namely, that Bill liked the story.
= sentential complement reading
John told the girl [S that Bill liked the story]

14. A diagram of the difference
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
A diagram of the difference S NP
John VP V
told
the girl
that Bill
liked
the story S NP
John VP V
told
the story
Det
the N
girl
that Bill
liked

15. Testing minimal attachment
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Testing minimal attachment
Paraphrase how you understand these sentences:
(28) Joe carried the package for Susan.
Joe carried [the package] [for Susan]
Joe carried [the package for Susan]
(29) Joe included the package for Susan.
Joe included [the package] [for Susan]
Joe included [the package for Susan]
Which of these obey minimal attachment?

16. Attachment of for Susan
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Attachment of for Susan S NP
Joe VP V
carried /
included
the
package PP
for
Susan S NP
Joe VP V
carried /
included
Det
the N
package PP
for
Susan

17. A different kind of problem
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
A different kind of problem
The old man the boat.
The man whistling tunes pianos.
The cotton clothing is made of grows in Mississippi.
The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.
The author wrote the novel was likely to be a best-seller.
The tomcat curled up on the cushion seemed friendly.

18. What does it mean to lead someone down the garden path?
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
What does it mean to lead someone down the garden path?
The Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms says that the negative connotation of ‘leading someone down the garden path’ is “based on the idea that a path in a garden is very pleasant, so someone who is brought along it can be deceived without noticing it.”

19. The second most famous sentence in linguistics
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
The second most famous sentence in linguistics
The horse raced past the barn fell.
Ingram pp has an extensive discussion of this sentence. Please read and mull over it.
Unfortunately, he does not relate all the details that he discusses to the neuroscience of sentence processing.
So let’s consider this chapter/section? finished and go on.

20. Models of sentence processing
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
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?
On-line processing

21. Two types of processing
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Two types of processing
on-line
off-line
Happens in real time.
Instructions for an experiment to test it:
You will read a sentence, one word at a time.
Push a key after each word.
Happens after the fact.
Instructions for an experiment to test it:
You will read a sentence.
Point to the picture that describes it best.

22. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Working memory
How would you solve this arithmetic problem?
= ?
(1 + 1) + 1 = ?
2 + 1 = 3
So you need to store the second half of the problem as you calculate the first half.
The prototypical example is keeping a telephone number in mind as you dial it:
This sort of storage is known as working memory, and has been variously characterized as:
a scratch pad,
a temporary work space,
a buffer.

23. Working memory span or capacity
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Working memory span or capacity
The amount of material that you can keep on your ‘scratch pad’ is known as your working memory span or capacity.
How much is it?
Miller’s number: 7 ± 2
It varies a little from person to person and even from domain to domain in the same person.
That’s the meaning of the “± 2”
Working memory span can be impaired in brain injury.
It has recently been shown to be correlated with fluid intelligence.

24. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Short-term memory
There is also something called short-term memory, which I can never understand how it is different from working memory.

25. Fluid vs. crystallized intelligence
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Fluid vs. crystallized intelligence
Fluid (Gf) and crystallized (Gc) intelligence are factors of general (G) intelligence.
Fluid intelligence is the capacity to think logically, recognize patterns, and solve problems in novel situations.
Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use skills, knowledge, and experience. It improves somewhat with age, as experiences tend to expand one's knowledge.

26. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Back to syntax
Parsing a sentence also exercises working memory.
[S [NP a cat] [VP is [PP on [NP the couch]]]] S NP
a cat VP V is PP
on the couch

27. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Final project
Improve a Wikipedia article about any of the topics mentioned in class or any other topic broadly related to neurolinguistics.
Write a short essay explaining what you did and why you did it.
Print the article before you improve it, highlighting any subtractions.
Print the article after you improve it, highlighting your additions.

28. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
NEXT TIME
More syntax

29. One or two working memories?
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
One or two working memories?
There is some debate over whether the working memory needed for parsing is part of a general purpose working memory or constitutes its own specialized store of working memory.
Evidence for the latter
Some patients who share severe deficits of general purpose working memory as assessed by attention span tests are still able to understand complex spoken sentences.
Individual differences in working memory are usually not implicated in on-line language understanding.
HH: does this mean that language is more an aspect of crystalized intelligence than fluid intelligence?
Evidence for the former
Individual differences in working memory are implicated in strategies for understanding complex spoken sentences.
Ingram says it’s a tie.
I am going to try to test this in the next experiment.

30. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
15-Nov-17
Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University
Some relevant tasks
Sentence processing
Self-paced reading:
A sentence is presented as a series of words on a computer monitor, and the subject presses a key on the keyboard after each word.
The horse raced past the barn fell.
Working memory
Attention span
How many digits can the subject remember and recall in normal or reverse sequence?
Verbal working memory ~ reading/listening span
The subject reads/hears a series of sentences presented as a block.
How many sentences can the subject recall the last word of?
This span correlates highly with verbal SAT scores.