Publications

Abstract

The syntactic structure of main and subordinate clauses is determined to a considerable extent by verb biases. For example, some English and Dutch ditransitive verbs have a preference for the prepositional object dative, whereas others are typically used with the double object dative. In this study, we compare the effect of these biases on structure selection in (S)VO and (S)OV dative clauses in the Corpus of Spoken Dutch (CGN). This comparison allowed us to make inferences about the size of the advance planning scope during spontaneous speaking: If the verb is an obligatory component of clause-level advance planning scope, as is claimed by the hypothesis of hierarchical incrementality, then biases should exert their influence on structure choices, regardless of early (VO) or late (OV) position of the verb in the clause. Conversely, if planning proceeds in a piecemeal fashion, strictly guided by lexical availability, as claimed by linear incrementality, then the verb and its associated biases can only influence structure choices in VO sentences. We tested these predictions by analyzing structure choices in the CGN, using mixed logit models. Our results support a combination of linear and hierarchical incrementality, showing a significant influence of verb bias on structure choices in VO, and a weaker (but still significant) effect in OV clauses

Abstract

Behavioral syntactic priming effects during sentence comprehension are typically observed only if both the syntactic structure and lexical head are repeated. In contrast, during production syntactic priming occurs with structure repetition alone, but the effect is boosted by repetition of the lexical head. We used fMRI to investigate the neuronal correlates of syntactic priming and lexical boost effects during sentence production and comprehension. The critical measure was the magnitude of fMRI adaptation to repetition of sentences in active or passive voice, with or without verb repetition. In conditions with repeated verbs, we observed adaptation to structure repetition in the left IFG and MTG, for active and passive voice. However, in the absence of repeated verbs, adaptation occurred only for passive sentences. None of the fMRI adaptation effects yielded differential effects for production versus comprehension, suggesting that sentence comprehension and production are subserved by the same neuronal infrastructure for syntactic processing.

Abstract

We present a quantitative model of word order and movement constraints that enables a simple and uniform treatment of a seemingly heterogeneous collection of linear order phenomena in English, Dutch and German complement constructions (Wh-extraction, clause union, extraposition, verb clustering, particle movement, etc.). Underlying the scheme are central assumptions of the psycholinguistically motivated Performance Grammar (PG). Here we describe this formalism in declarative terms based on typed feature unification. PG allows a homogenous treatment of both the within- and between-language variations of the ordering phenomena under discussion, which reduce to different settings of a small number of quantitative parameters.

Abstract

In this paper we present a definition of Performance Grammar (PG), a psycholinguistically motivated syntax formalism, in declarative terms. PG aims not only at describing and explaining intuitive judgments and other data concerning the well–formedness of sentences of a language, but also at contributing to accounts of syntactic processing phenomena observable in language comprehension and language production. We highlight two general properties of human sentence generation, incrementality and late linearization,which make special demands on the design of grammar formalisms claiming psychological plausibility. In order to meet these demands, PG generates syntactic structures in a two-stage process. In the first and most important ‘hierarchical’ stage, unordered hierarchical structures (‘mobiles’) are assembled out of lexical building blocks. The key operation at work here is typed feature unification, which also delimits the positional options of the syntactic constituents in terms of so-called topological features. The second, much simpler stage takes care of arranging the branches of the mobile from left to right by ‘reading–out’ one positional option of every constituent. In this paper we concentrate on the structure assembly formalism in PG’s hierarchical component. We provide a declarative definition couched in an HPSG–style notation based on typed feature unification. Our emphasis throughout is on linear order constraints.