SYNTAX 1 DAY 30 – NOV 6, 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. 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 2

REVIEW 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 3

Associations for “pig” in LH/RH terms 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 4

Summary of lateralization of word semantics LHRH a. Slowly selects multiple meanings (divergent processing) that are weakly associated. b. Primes words that share few semantic features > loosely associated words. c. Primes the less frequent meaning of an ambiguous word. d. Primes function, collectives, goal- oriented classes. e. Priming stays same with more words. f. Priming is same for unstructured sentences. g. Priming is same for incongruent sentences. 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 5 a. Quickly selects most familiar or dominant meaning (convergent processing) while suppressing other less closely related meanings. b. Primes words that share many semantic features > closely associated words. c. Primes the most frequent meaning of an ambiguous word. d. Primes category, but not others. e. Priming is faster with more words. f. Priming is slower for unstructured sentences. g. Priming is slower for incongruent sentences.

Two types of semantic processing Convergent semantic processing i. … in linguistic tasks which elicit a limited number of responses. ii. In such tasks, subjects must suppress alternate meanings or select a single best item from many choices. iii. For instance, a subject may be presented with a noun such as ‘hammer’ and be asked to supply a verb, giving the response ‘(to) pound’. Divergent semantic processing i. … in linguistic tasks which elicit a wide number of responses. ii. In such tasks, subjects must produce alternate meanings or list as many items as possible. iii. For instance, the experiment just mentioned can be continued by asking the subject to supply yet another verb, resulting in a response such as ‘(to) throw’. 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 6

Summary of lateralization of phonology LH small window of temporal integration no overlap between windows high temporal frequency: rapid cues, like stops high spectral frequency: formants categorical distinctions: lexical, phrasal, clausal stress; lexical tone in Thai/Chinese RH large window of temporal integration overlap between windows low temporal frequency: slow cues, like vowels low spectral frequency: fundamental graded/coordinate distinctions: emotional intonation, sentence type? 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 7

A conversion to resolution Left hemisphere, fine coding: 9 neurons index 9 regions of space Right hemisphere, coarse coding: 4 neurons index 12+ regions of space 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 8

Associations for “pig” in LH/RH terms 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 9

SENTENCE COMPREHENSION AND SYNTACTIC PARSING Ingram IV. Sentence comprehension, §12 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 10

Linguistic model, Fig. 2.1 p /06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 11 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

What is syntactic processing? “Narrowly defined, syntactic processing involves the assignment of syntactic structure to word strings that qualify as a ‘sentences’”. (p. 244) 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 12

What is a sentence? Some definitions A complete thought. Mary kissed John. Mary kissed. Mary. Kissed. Kissed John. A subject and a predicate. Mary kissed John. Mary kissed. Mary. Kissed. Kissed John. A string of words starting with a capital letter and ending with a period. 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 13

What we said at the beginning S = NP VP, or [ S NP VP] [ S Mary [ VP kissed John]] 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 14 S NP Mary VP V kissed NP John

But … … we very often utter incomplete sentences: a) Who kissed John? b) Mary. c) What did Mary do? d) Kiss John. So the missing information can be filled in by the context: a) Who kissed John? b) [ S Mary [ VP Ø]] c) What did Mary do? d) [ S [ NP Ø] [ VP kiss John]] 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 15

What is a grammar? “A grammar is an explicit set of rules for distinguishing the well- formed sentences of a language from those that are ill-formed (ungrammatical).” (p. 245) We have already seen a fragment of a grammar of English: ① S → NP VP ② VP → V NP Which of these strings are ill-formed (ungrammatical), according to this grammar? Mary kissed John. Mary kissed. Mary. Kissed. Kissed John. 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 16 * * * *

Another example Let’s change to Ingram’s example, “A cat is on the couch.” We need to augment our grammar: 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.} Write down the syntactic structure for Ingram’s example: [ S [ NP a cat] [ VP is [ PP on [ NP the couch]]]] 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 17 S NP a cat VP V is PP on the couch

NEXT TIME Continue with §12 Sentence comprehension and syntactic parsing 11/06/13Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 18