Language processing and the mental representation of syntactic structure
This thesis investigates the mental representation of syntactic structure. It takes an interdisciplinary approach which exploits methods and insights from both experimental psychology and theoretical linguistics to explore the claim that syntactic representation can be the subject of empirical psychological study. The thesis makes use of corpus analysis and two experimental methods, agreement error elicitation and syntactic priming, to examine syntactic structure in both language production and language comprehension. I argue that assumptions about syntactic representation are fundamental to all models of language processing. However, processing models have largely assumed the representations proposed by theoretical linguists in the belief that that syntactic representation is the province of theoretical linguistics. I propose that the mental representation of syntactic structure is a legitimate area of study for psycholinguists and that it can be investigated using experimental methods. The remainder of this thesis presents empirical evidence to support this claim. The main conclusion of this thesis is that syntactic representation is amenable to psychological study. The evidence which is gathered in this
Brannigan, Holly P.
Language processing and the mental representation of syntactic structure. This thesis investigates the mental representation of syntactic structure. It takes an interdisciplinary approach which exploits methods and insights from both experimental psychology and theoretical linguistics to explore the claim that syntactic representation can be the subject of empirical psychological study. The thesis makes use of corpus analysis and two experimental methods, agreement error elicitation and syntactic priming, to examine syntactic structure in both language production and language comprehension. I argue that assumptions about syntactic representation are fundamental to all models of language processing. However, processing models have largely assumed the representations proposed by theoretical linguists in the belief that that syntactic representation is the province of theoretical linguistics. I propose that the mental representation of syntactic structure is a legitimate area of study for psycholinguists and that it can be investigated using experimental methods. The remainder of this thesis presents empirical evidence to support this claim. The main conclusion of this thesis is that syntactic representation is amenable to psychological study. The evidence which is gathered in this
language_processing mental_representation syntactic_structure investigates mental_representation syntactic_structure take interdisciplinary exploit method insight experimental psychology theoretical_linguistics explore claim syntactic_representation subject empirical psychological study make_use corpus_analysis experimental_method agreement error elicitation syntactic_priming examine syntactic_structure language_production language_comprehension argue assumption syntactic_representation fundamental model language_processing however process model largely assume representation propose theoretical linguist belief syntactic_representation province theoretical_linguistics propose mental_representation syntactic_structure legitimate area study investigate use experimental_method remainder present_empirical evidence_support claim main_conclusion syntactic_representation psychological study evidence_gather