A Minimalist Approach to Facilitatory Effects in Stacked Relative Clauses

A top-down parser for Minimalist grammars (MGs; Stabler, 2013) can successfully predict a variety of off-line processing preferences, via metrics linking parsing behavior to memory load (Kobele et al., 2013; Gerth, 2015; Graf et al., 2017). The increasing empirical coverage of this model is intriguing, given its close association to modern minimalist syntax. Recently however, Zhang (2017) has argued that this framework is unable to account for a set of complexity profiles reported for English and Mandarin Chinese stacked relative clauses. Based on these observations, this paper proposes extensions to this model implementing a notion of memory reactivation, in the form of memory metrics sensitive to repetitions of movement features. We then show how these metrics derive the correct pre- dictions for the stacked RC processing contrast

An MG Parsing View into the Processing of Subject and Object Relative Clauses in Basque

Stabler (2013)\u27s top-down parser for Minimalist grammars has been used to account for a variety of off-line processing preferences, with measures of memory load sensitive to subtle structural details. This paper expands the model\u27s empirical coverage to ergative languages by looking at the processing asymmetries reported for Basque relative clauses. Our results show that the model predicts a subject over object preference as identified in the relevant psycholinguistic literature

MG Parsing as a Model of Gradient Acceptability in Syntactic Islands

It is well-known that the acceptability judgments at the core of current syntactic theories are continuous. However, an open debate is whether the source of such gradience is situated in the grammar itself, or can be derived from extra-grammatical factors. In this paper, we propose the use of a top-down parser for Minimalist grammars (Stabler, 2013; Kobele et al., 2013; Graf et al., 2017), as a formal model of how gradient acceptability can arise from categorical grammars. As a test case, we target the acceptability judgments for island effects collected by Sprouse et al. (2012a)

Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsing

Minimalist grammars have been used recently in a series of papers to explain well-known contrasts in human sentence processing in terms of subtle structural differences. These proposals combine a top-down parser with complexity metrics that relate parsing difficulty to memory usage. So far, though, there has been no large-scale exploration of the space of viable metrics. Building on this earlier work, we compare the ability of 1600 metrics to derive several processing effects observed with relative clauses, many of which have been proven difficult to unify. We show that among those 1600 candidates, a few metrics (and only a few) can provide a unified account of all these contrasts. This is a welcome result for two reasons: First, it provides a novel account of extensively studied psycholinguistic data. Second, it significantly limits the number of viable metrics that may be applied to other phenomena, thus reducing theoretical indeterminacy

Interaction Grammars

Interaction Grammar (IG) is a grammatical formalism based on the notion of polarity. Polarities express the resource sensitivity of natural languages by modelling the distinction between saturated and unsaturated syntactic structures. Syntactic composition is represented as a chemical reaction guided by the saturation of polarities. It is expressed in a model-theoretic framework where grammars are constraint systems using the notion of tree description and parsing appears as a process of building tree description models satisfying criteria of saturation and minimality

El papel de la experiencia en el procesamiento sintáctico: una visión crítica desde la lingüística

Linguists with an interest in psycholinguistic research on the processing of language often feel concerned that psycholinguistic experiments truly reflect important aspects of the nature of language and not artefactual dimensions of the methodologies used in them. In this paper I intend to argue that one of the main theories of language comprehension, Tuning, is flawed precisely because the theory has virtually no connection with the world of linguistics. If my view is correct, information about language obtained within the Tuning paradigm is therefore unlikely to reflect truly significant aspects of the nature of language. Tuning is premised on the role played by frequency in many cognitive domains, including the processing of language. It claims that ambiguous sentences are processed initially by preferring more frequent syntactic trees over less frequent ones. A prerequisite to the verificability of the theory is that its corpus analyses be wellfounded. Another is that the theory spell out precisely what counts as a segment subject to frequency effects. I intend to argue that these two prerequisites are not adequately controlled by the proponents of the modelAlgunos lingüistas interesados en la investigación realizada sobre el procesamiento lingüístico suelen expresar su preocupación de que los experimentos psicolingüísticos reflejen verdaderamente aspectos importantes de la naturaleza de la facultad lingüística humana, y no sesgos incontrolados de las metodologías con las que se realizan. En este artículo pretendo defender la tesis de que una de las principales teorías de procesamiento lingüístico, Tuning, está fundada sobre bases teóricas endebles, precisamente porque apenas goza de conexión alguna con el mundo de la lingüística. De ser esto cierto, es poco probable que la información sobre la facultad del lenguaje que proceda de dicho paradigma investigador arroje un conocimiento de aspectos verdaderamente significativos sobre la naturaleza del lenguaje humano. Tuning enfatiza el papel de hecho desempeñado por la frecuencia en la formación de hábitos pertenecientes a diversos dominios cognitivos, entre los que figura el procesamiento lingüístico. Mantiene que las oraciones ambiguas se procesan en un primer barrido a través de un sesgo o predilección por los árboles sintácticos más frecuentes. Un primer prerrequisito para la verificabilidad de la teoría es que sus análisis de corpus sean fiables. Otro segundo prerrequisito es que la teoría explicite de modo preciso qué segmentos sintácticos concretos están sujetos a recuentos de frecuencia. Es mi intención demostrar que estos dos prerrequisitos no están suficientemente controlados por los defensores del modeloThis research was funded by the Fund for Scientific Research of the Autonomous Government of Galicia (grant number PGIDT01PXI20401PR)S