Models and mechanisms of sentence processing : accounting for distance effects in temporarily ambiguous English sentences
I begin by reviewing the sentence processing field and assessing the legacy of generative grammar and its associated view of the mind on proposed mechanisms of language processing. I argue that this legacy prevents many models of processing from being able to account, in principle, for recent findings within the field. A model of processing is proposed which combined insights from Cognitive Grammar and constraint-based parsing, including the principle of parsing as categorisation proposed by Langacker (2000). This model, the categorising, constraint-based parser, is tested alongside parsing models from the literature in the remainder of the thesis. A series of ten experiments is presented which look at the effect of âhead distanceâ on temporarily ambiguous sentences of English. Head distance refers to the distance between the lexical head of an initially ambiguous part of the sentence (âsoldierâ in the examples below), and the disambiguating region (âreachedâŠâ). This distance is greater in (1b) than in (1a). (1a) <i>as the young woman was waking the young and bearded soldier reached for his sword. </i>(1b) <i>as the young woman was waking the soldier who was young and bearded reached for his
East, H.
Models and mechanisms of sentence processing : accounting for distance effects in temporarily ambiguous English sentences. I begin by reviewing the sentence processing field and assessing the legacy of generative grammar and its associated view of the mind on proposed mechanisms of language processing. I argue that this legacy prevents many models of processing from being able to account, in principle, for recent findings within the field. A model of processing is proposed which combined insights from Cognitive Grammar and constraint-based parsing, including the principle of parsing as categorisation proposed by Langacker (2000). This model, the categorising, constraint-based parser, is tested alongside parsing models from the literature in the remainder of the thesis. A series of ten experiments is presented which look at the effect of âhead distanceâ on temporarily ambiguous sentences of English. Head distance refers to the distance between the lexical head of an initially ambiguous part of the sentence (âsoldierâ in the examples below), and the disambiguating region (âreachedâŠâ). This distance is greater in (1b) than in (1a). (1a) <i>as the young woman was waking the young and bearded soldier reached for his sword. </i>(1b) <i>as the young woman was waking the soldier who was young and bearded reached for his
models mechanisms sentence_processing accounting distance effect temporarily ambiguous english sentence begin_review sentence_processing field assess legacy generative_grammar associate view mind propose mechanisms language_processing argue legacy prevent many model process able_account principle recent finding within_field model processing propose combined insight cognitive grammar constraint_based parsing include principle parse categorisation propose model categorise constraint_based parser test alongside parse model literature remainder thesis series present look effect head distance temporarily ambiguous sentence english head distance refers distance lexical head initially ambiguous part sentence soldier example disambiguate region reach distance great young_woman wake young soldier reach sword young_woman wake soldier young reach