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

Students who are learning to write in a foreign language, often want feedback on the grammatical quality of the sentences they produce. The usual NLP approach to this problem is based on parsing student-generated text. Here, we propose a generation-based ap- proach aiming at preventing errors ("scaffolding"). In our ICALL system, the student constructs sentences by composing syntactic trees out of lexically anchored "treelets" via a graphical drag & drop user interface. A natural-language generator computes all possible grammatically well-formed sentences entailed by the student-composed tree. It provides positive feedback if the student-composed tree belongs to the well-formed set, and negative feedback otherwise. If so requested by the student, it can substantiate the positive or negative feedback based on a comparison between the student-composed tree and its own trees (informative feedback on demand). In case of negative feedback, the system refuses to build the structure attempted by the student. Frequently occurring errors are handled in terms of "malrules." The system we describe is a prototype (implemented in JAVA and C++) which can be parameterized with respect to L1 and L2, the size of the lexicon, and the level of detail of the visually presented grammatical structures.

Abstract

In a recent Cognition paper (Cognition 85 (2002) B21), Bornkessel, Schlesewsky, and Friederici report ERP data that they claim “show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing” (p. B21). In this commentary we demonstrate that the posited contrast between grammatical principles and construction (in)frequency as sources of parsing problems is artificial because it is based on factually incorrect assumptions about the grammar of German and on inaccurate corpus frequency data concerning the German constructions involved.