Transparent parsing : Head-driven processing of verb-final structures

The conceptual guideline underlying this study is that the goal of processing theory should be to construct a transparent parser. A transparent parser is a parser which employs only properties and relations that are available in the grammar, without resorting to processing-specific notions. Under a lexicalist conception of grammar, such as the Minimalist Program, this conceptual guideline leads to the conclusion that the structure-building mechanism available to the human parser must be head-driven. As a starting point for developing a transparent parser, this study takes the processing model of Pritchett (1992), which is introduced in chapter 2. In this head-driven model, initial analysis is driven by the need to satisfy a grammatical principle (the Theta Criterion) as soon as possible. The model also features a reanalysis constraint, the On-Line Locality Constraint, which specifies two structurally defined conditions under which the human parser can perform reanalysis without evoking a garden path effect. Head-driven processing models have encountered resistance in the literature. Frazier (1987, 1989) and Schneider (1999) argue that the processing complexity which can occur in headfinal structures, shows that the parser builds structure before it encounters the head. In chapter 3, this argumentation is critically examined and rejected. The discussion involves a variety of locally ambiguous structures, such as relative clauses in Dutch, and preverbal PP-attachment ambiguities. Chapter 4 discusses the processing of verb-final structures under Pritchett's theory. One language of interest is Dutch, which is verb-final in embedded clauses, and verb-second in main clauses. Another language of interest is Japanese. Although Pritchett s theory goes a long way in explaining the virtual absence of garden path effects in Japanese, it does predict processing difficulties in Japanese in some contexts that are actually processed without effort, as has been pointed out by Mazuka and Itoh (1995). To accommodate these cases, an extension of Pritchett's reanalysis constraint is proposed. It is argued on the basis of Dutch and Japanese that the reanalysis process that is available to the human parser can reanalyze material from the edge of a phase to a position outside that phase. Chapter 5 gives an overview of the resulting system, and shows how it accounts for the English, Japanese and Dutch data that were discussed. Furthermore, a unified formulation of the reanalysis constraint is proposed, in terms of domain closure. Chapter 6 concludes that it is possible to construct a transparent parser that accounts for garden path phenomena in both OV- and VO-structures, and that garden path data provide no evidence that there is a need to posit a separate parser for head-final languages such as Japanese, as is sometimes proposed. The resulting system comprises a step forward in the formulation of a universal, transparent parser

Transparent parsing : Head-driven processing of verb-final structures

The conceptual guideline underlying this study is that the goal of processing theory should be to construct a transparent parser. A transparent parser is a parser which employs only properties and relations that are available in the grammar, without resorting to processing-specific notions. Under a lexicalist conception of grammar, such as the Minimalist Program, this conceptual guideline leads to the conclusion that the structure-building mechanism available to the human parser must be head-driven. As a starting point for developing a transparent parser, this study takes the processing model of Pritchett (1992), which is introduced in chapter 2. In this head-driven model, initial analysis is driven by the need to satisfy a grammatical principle (the Theta Criterion) as soon as possible. The model also features a reanalysis constraint, the On-Line Locality Constraint, which specifies two structurally defined conditions under which the human parser can perform reanalysis without evoking a garden path effect. Head-driven processing models have encountered resistance in the literature. Frazier (1987, 1989) and Schneider (1999) argue that the processing complexity which can occur in headfinal structures, shows that the parser builds structure before it encounters the head. In chapter 3, this argumentation is critically examined and rejected. The discussion involves a variety of locally ambiguous structures, such as relative clauses in Dutch, and preverbal PP-attachment ambiguities. Chapter 4 discusses the processing of verb-final structures under Pritchett's theory. One language of interest is Dutch, which is verb-final in embedded clauses, and verb-second in main clauses. Another language of interest is Japanese. Although Pritchett s theory goes a long way in explaining the virtual absence of garden path effects in Japanese, it does predict processing difficulties in Japanese in some contexts that are actually processed without effort, as has been pointed out by Mazuka and Itoh (1995). To accommodate these cases, an extension of Pritchett's reanalysis constraint is proposed. It is argued on the basis of Dutch and Japanese that the reanalysis process that is available to the human parser can reanalyze material from the edge of a phase to a position outside that phase. Chapter 5 gives an overview of the resulting system, and shows how it accounts for the English, Japanese and Dutch data that were discussed. Furthermore, a unified formulation of the reanalysis constraint is proposed, in terms of domain closure. Chapter 6 concludes that it is possible to construct a transparent parser that accounts for garden path phenomena in both OV- and VO-structures, and that garden path data provide no evidence that there is a need to posit a separate parser for head-final languages such as Japanese, as is sometimes proposed. The resulting system comprises a step forward in the formulation of a universal, transparent parser

Early association of prosodic focus with alleen 'only': evidence from eye movements in the visual-world paradigm

In three visual-world eye tracking studies, we investigated the processing of sentences containing the focus-sensitive operator alleen ‘only’ and different pitch accents, such as the Dutch Ik heb alleen SELDERIJ aan de brandweerman gegeven ‘I only gave CELERY to the fireman’ versus Ik heb alleen selderij aan de BRANDWEERMAN gegeven ‘I only gave celery to the FIREMAN’. Dutch, like English, allows accent shift to express different focus possibilities. Participants judged whether these utterances match different pictures: in Experiment 1 the Early Stress utterance matched the picture, in Experiment 2 both the Early and Late Stress utterance did, and in Experiment 3 neither did. We found that eye-gaze patterns start to diverge across the conditions already as the indirect object is being heard. Our data also indicate that participants perform anticipatory eye-movements based on the presence of prosodic focus during auditory sentence processing. Our investigation is the first to report the effect of varied prosodic accent placement on different arguments in sentences with a semantic operator, alleen ‘only’, on the time course of looks in the visual world paradigm. Using an operator in the visual world paradigm allowed us to confirm that prosodic focus information immediately gets integrated into the semantic parse of the proposition. Our study thus provides further evidence for fast, incremental prosodic focus processing in natural language

Can We ‘Read’ the Eye-Movement Patterns of Readers?: Unraveling the Relationship Between Reading Profiles and Processing Strategies

In an eye-tracking experiment we examined the risky reading hypothesis, in which long saccades and many regressions are considered to be indicative of a proactive reading style (Rayner et al. in Psychol Aging 21(3):448, 2006; Psychol Aging 24(3):755, 2009). We did so by presenting short texts—that confirmed or disconfirmed verb-based implicit causality expectations—to two types of readers: proactive readers (long saccades, many regressions) and conservative readers (short saccades, few regressions). Whereas proactive readers used implicit causality information to predict upcoming referents, and slowed down immediately when they encountered a pronoun that was inconsistent with these verb-based expectations, the conservative readers slowed down much later in the sentence. These findings were consistent with the predictions of the risky reading hypothesis and as such presented novel evidence for the general idea that the eye-movement profile of readers reveals valuable information about their processing strategy

Processing intransitive verbs : how do children differ from adults?

Previous studies have demonstrated that, for adults, differences between unaccusative verbs (e.g., “fall”) and unergative verbs (e.g., “dance”) lead to a difference in processing. However, so far we don’t know whether this effect shows up in children’s processing of these verbs as well. This study measures children’s processing of intransitive verbs using the Visual World Paradigm. We found that children differentiate in processing between unaccusative and unergative verbs, yet in a different way than adults do. We identify and discuss potential sources for this difference

Lezen en antwoorden bij de tekst met vragen geobserveerd: Een eye-trackstudie onder vwo 4-leerlingen

In leeslessen Nederlands in het secundair onderwijs wordt vaak de tekst met vragen gebruikt om leerlingen te toetsen en trai- nen in tekstbegrip. Daarbij is de gedachte doorgaans: wie goed vooraf leest, maakt de vragen ook goed. In deze studie wordt de re- latie tussen het vooraf lezen van teksten en het beantwoorden van bijbehorende vragen onderzocht door analyse van de oogbewe- gingen. Vertrekpunt vormt de aanname in de Constructie-Integratietheorie van Kintsch (1998) dat lezers voor een dieper tekstbegrip meer aandacht besteden aan kernzinnen dan aan niet-kernzinnen. Er is onderzocht in hoe- verre vwo 4-leerlingen (N = 16) tijdens vooraf lezen meer leestijd schenken aan kernzinnen dan aan niet-kernzinnen en in hoeverre dit verband houdt met het antwoorden. Uit de re- sultaten blijkt dat deelnemers tijdens vooraf lezen meer tijd besteden aan kernzinnen, maar op dieper tekstbegripsniveau kon geen relatie tussen vooraf lezen en antwoorden worden vastgesteld. Deelnemers lezen vooraf over het algemeen lineair en construeren pas tijdens het antwoordproces een dieper tekst- begrip. De vraag is daarmee in hoeverre de huidige inrichting van deze taak tekstbegrip

Reading texts, answering questions: a cross-sectional eye-tracking study among preacademic students

In Dutch education one often uses 'texts with questions' to train reading skills: students study a text in advance and then answer questions, while the text is still available. In this eye-tracking study reading processes of eighth grade (n = 17), tenth grade (n = 16) and twelfth grade (n = 19) preacademic students within this task were observed. It was investigated how younger and older preacademic students (N = 52) differ in their reading and answering processes and how initial text reading influences answering. Results: twelfth graders read texts initially faster than eighth graders, but not faster than tenth graders. Participants generally showed few signs of strategic reading. In the answering process older students knew better where to locate answers in the text and answered more questions correctly than younger students

Lezen en antwoorden bij de tekst met vragen geobserveerd: Een eye-trackstudie onder vwo 4-leerlingen

In leeslessen Nederlands in het secundair onderwijs wordt vaak de tekst met vragen gebruikt om leerlingen te toetsen en trai- nen in tekstbegrip. Daarbij is de gedachte doorgaans: wie goed vooraf leest, maakt de vragen ook goed. In deze studie wordt de re- latie tussen het vooraf lezen van teksten en het beantwoorden van bijbehorende vragen onderzocht door analyse van de oogbewe- gingen. Vertrekpunt vormt de aanname in de Constructie-Integratietheorie van Kintsch (1998) dat lezers voor een dieper tekstbegrip meer aandacht besteden aan kernzinnen dan aan niet-kernzinnen. Er is onderzocht in hoe- verre vwo 4-leerlingen (N = 16) tijdens vooraf lezen meer leestijd schenken aan kernzinnen dan aan niet-kernzinnen en in hoeverre dit verband houdt met het antwoorden. Uit de re- sultaten blijkt dat deelnemers tijdens vooraf lezen meer tijd besteden aan kernzinnen, maar op dieper tekstbegripsniveau kon geen relatie tussen vooraf lezen en antwoorden worden vastgesteld. Deelnemers lezen vooraf over het algemeen lineair en construeren pas tijdens het antwoordproces een dieper tekst- begrip. De vraag is daarmee in hoeverre de huidige inrichting van deze taak tekstbegrip

Lezen en antwoorden bij teksten met vragen: Een cross-sectionele eye-trackstudie onder 52 vwo-leerlingen

In Dutch education one often uses 'texts with questions' to train reading skills: students study a text in advance and then answer questions, while the text is still available. In this eye-tracking study reading processes of eighth grade (n = 17), tenth grade (n = 16) and twelfth grade (n = 19) preacademic students within this task were observed. It was investigated how younger and older preacademic students (N = 52) differ in their reading and answering processes and how initial text reading influences answering. Results: twelfth graders read texts initially faster than eighth graders, but not faster than tenth graders. Participants generally showed few signs of strategic reading. In the answering process older students knew better where to locate answers in the text and answered more questions correctly than younger students