1. Incrementality in Comprehension Speed and Accuracy

2. Speed

3. Measures of Speed • Measures of speed of processing • Speech-Shadowing: • Eye-tracking • Speed-accuracy Tradeoff (SAT) • Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)

4. Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff (SAT)

5. McElree & Griffith (1995) - grammatical- subcategorization- thematic- syntactic

7. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) John is laughing. s1 s2 s3

8. Event-Related Potentials • Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) are derived from the electroencephalogram (EEG) by averaging signals that are time-locked to a specific event. • Scalp voltages provide millisecond-accuracy, promise detailed timing information about syntactic computation, plus information about amplitude and scalp topography

9. ERP Sentence Processing N400 • Developing understanding of N400 is informative • Response to ‘violations’ I drink my coffee with cream and sugar I drink my coffee with cream and socks Kutas & Hillyard (1980)

10. Morpho-Syntactic violations Every Monday he mows the lawn. Every Monday he *mow the lawn. The plane brought us to paradise. The plane brought *we to paradise. (Coulson et al., 1998) (Slide from Kaan (2001)

11. P600 he mows he *mow (Slide from Kaan (2001)

12. Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) P600 he mows he *mow (Slide from Kaan (2001)

13. Neville et al., 1991 The scientist criticized a proof of the theorem. The scientist criticized Max’s of proof the theorem.

14. 500ms/word

15. 500ms/word

16. Hahne & Friederici, 1999  Das Baby wurde gefüttert The baby was fed  Das Baby wurde im gefüttert The baby was in-the fed

17. Hahne & Friederici, 1999 ELAN

18. How Fast? • Various types of evidence for processes above the word level within 200-400 msec (conservatively) of the start of a word. • How are we able to compute so quickly? • What is it that is computed so quickly? • Rough-and-ready structural analysis? • Richer syntactic analysis?

19. Long-distance DependenciesBasic Paradigms When are gaps posited?

20. Parsing wh-constructions: evidence for on-line gap location Laurie Stowe (1986)

21. English Filled Gap Effect My brother wanted to know who Crain & Fodor 1985, Stowe 1986

22. English Filled Gap Effect My brother wanted to know who Ruth Crain & Fodor 1985, Stowe 1986

23. English Filled Gap Effect My brother wanted to know who Ruth will Crain & Fodor 1985, Stowe 1986

24. English Filled Gap Effect My brother wanted to know who Ruth will gap bring Crain & Fodor 1985, Stowe 1986

25. English Filled Gap Effect My brother wanted to know who Ruth will bring Readers slow down upon encountering an NP where a gap was expected, relative to a control structure, in which no gap was expected. us home to at Christmas Slowdown Crain & Fodor 1985, Stowe 1986

26. Stowe results • My brother wanted to know……if Ruth will bring us home to Mom at Christmas.…who __ will bring us home to Mom at Christmas.…who Ruth will bring __ home to Mom at Christmas.…who Ruth will bring us home to __ at Christmas. • Ruth us MomIF 661 755 755Wh-S -- 801 812Wh-O 680 -- 833Wh-P 689 970 --

27. Crain & Fodor 1985 • Filled-Gap Paradigm • Who had the little girl expected us to sing those stupid French songs for __ at Christmas. • The little girl had expected us to sing those stupid French songs for Cheryl at Christmas.

28. Garnsey et al. 1989 • ERP recordings, plausibility manipulationThe businessman knew which article the secretary called __ at home.The businessman knew which customer the secretary called __ at home.N400 at called.

29. Argument Structure V NP remind V NP IP (Boland et al. 1995)

30. Argument Structure V NP Samuel asked whether Mark reminded them to watch the child. Which child did Mark remind them to watch ___? Which movie did Mark remind them to watch ___? remind V NP IP (Boland et al. 1995)

31. Argument Structure V NP Samuel asked whether Mark reminded them to watch the child. Which child did Mark remind them to watch ___? Which movie did Mark remind them to watch ___? remind V NP IP (Boland et al. 1995)

32. Argument Structure V NP Samuel asked whether Mark reminded them to watch the child. Which child did Mark remind them to watch ___? Which movie did Mark remind them to watch ___? remind V NP IP (Boland et al. 1995)

33. Boland et al., 1995 1a. Which client did the salesman visit while in the city? b. Which prize did the salesman visit while in the city? 2a. Which child did your brother remind to watch the show? b. Which movie did your brother remind to watch the show?

34. Traxler & Pickering 1996 • Plausibility manipulation - eye-tracking • That’s the {pistol/garage} with which the heartless killer shot the hapless man yesterday afternoon. • That’s the {garage/pistol} in which the heartless killer shot the hapless man yesterday afternoon.

35. ERPs and Long-DistanceSyntactic Dependencies Colin PhillipsNina KazaninaShani Abada

36. Kaan et al. (2000) WH Emily wondered who the performer in the concert had imitated for the audience’s amusement.Control Emily wondered whether the performer in the concert had imitated a pop star for the audience’s amusement. P600 reflects normal structure-building processes. “P600 amplitude is an index of syntactic integration difficulty.” P600 amplitude should covary with integration difficulty. (Kaan, Harris, Gibson, & Holcomb, 2000)

37. Experiment Design a. Short controlThe actress wished that the producers knew that the witty host would tell the jokes during the party. b. Short WHThe actress wished that the producers knew which jokes the witty host would tell__ during the party. c. Long controlThe producers knew that the actress wished that the witty host would tell the jokes during the party. d. Long WHThe producers knew which jokes the actress wished that the witty host wouldtell __ during the party.

38. Embedded Verb The actress wished that the producers knew that the witty host would tell … The actress wished that the producers knew which jokes the witty host would tell… The producers knew that the actress wished that the witty host would tell … The producers knew which jokes the actress wished that the witty host would tell…

39. Embedded Verb The actress wished that the producers knew that the witty host would tell … The actress wished that the producers knew which jokes the witty host would tell… The producers knew that the actress wished that the witty host would tell … The producers knew which jokes the actress wished that the witty host would tell…

40. Embedded Verb The actress wished that the producers knew that the witty host would tell … The actress wished that the producers knew which jokes the witty host would tell… The producers knew that the actress wished that the witty host would tell … The producers knew which jokes the actress wished that the witty host would tell…

41. Sussman & Sedivy (2003)

42. (Sussman & Sedivy, 2003)

43. Where to look for gaps ‘Active’ Gap Creation

44. Filler vs. Gap-Driven Parsing • Fodor 1978 • Gap-driven: construct a wh-dependency only once a ‘doubtless’ gap has been identified • Filler-driven: construct a wh-dependency once a filler and a possible gap position have been identified

45. ‘Active Filler Strategy’ • Active Filler Strategy (Frazier & Clifton, 1989: 95)When a filler has been identified, rank the option of assigning it to a gap over all other options. • Active Filler Strategy (Clifton & Frazier, 1989: 292)When a filler of category XP has been identified in a nonargument position, such as COMP [complementizer], rank the option of assigning its corresponding gap to the sentence over the option of identifying a lexical phrase of category XP

46. Subject Gaps • Most evidence from English involves complement positions of verbs • Subject gaps in German & Dutch (e.g. Frazier, 1987) • Karl hielp de mijnwerkers die de boswachter vonden.K helped the mineworkers who the forester found.pl • Karl hielp de mijnwerkers die de boswachter vond.K helped the mineworkers who the forester found.sg.

47. Analyses of mean raw word-by-word reading time revealed no significant difference in reading time for 'Susan' between (2a) and (2b) but a significant difference between (2c) and (2d). The longer reading time for 'Susan' in (2c)was highly localised in that neither in the four-word adjunct region before,nor at the verb after, 'Susan' was there a significant reading time difference between (2c) and (2d). This highly localised effect will be taken as afilled-gap effect in the subject position after alternative explanations in terms of the frequency of use and/or markedness of the sentence structures involved, the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy and semantic/thematic processing have been considered and dismissed. Implications of the subject filled-gap effect for the debate between gap-based and gap-free accounts of sentence processing and for processing theories which claim to predict Stowe's original null finding will be discussed. Examples: (1) a. My brother wanted to know who Ruth will bring us home to at Christmas. b. My brother wanted to know if Ruth will bring us home to Mom at Christmas. (2) a. That is the book which Susan asked her students not to quote from. b. That is the book from which Susan asked her students not to quote. c.That is the book which, for no apparent reason, Susan asked her students not to quote from. d. That is the book from which, for no apparent reason, Susan asked her students not to quote. (Ming-Wei Lee, 2003)

48. Types of Dependencies Gaps?

49. Competing Theories Indirect AssociationTransformational Grammar(--> Projection Principle) What do Englishmen cook gap/trace/copy Direct AssociationHPSG/GPSGCategorial GrammarDependency Grammaretc. What do Englishmen cook

50. Competing Theories Indirect AssociationTransformational Grammar(--> Projection Principle) What do Englishmen cook gap/trace/copy Direct AssociationHPSG/GPSGCategorial GrammarDependency Grammaretc. What do Englishmen cook Attempts to distinguish between these theoriesusing evidence from language processing…