syntax 2 nov 11, 2015 – day 32 brain & language ling 4110-4890-5110-7960 nsci 4110-4891-6110...

SYNTAX 2NOV 11, 2015 – DAY 32

Brain & Language

LING 4110-4890-5110-7960

NSCI 4110-4891-6110

Fall 2015

2

Course organization• Schedule:

• http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t1-Intro.html#schedule-of-topics

• Today's chapter:• http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t19-aIFG.html

• Fun with https://www.facebook.com/BrLg15/• Quiz before Thanksgiving will be in class & on

Blackboard.

11/11/15 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t1-Intro.html%23schedule-of-topics

http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t1-Intro.html%23schedule-of-topics

http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t19-aIFG.html

https://www.facebook.com/BrLg15/

3

GradesQ1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7

MIN 6 5 5 4 7 3 4

AVG 9.0 8.8 8.8 8.4 9.2 7.5 8.7

MAX 10 10 10 10 10 10 10


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COMBINATORIAL NET 2


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The lexical interface


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The parts of speech/syntactic categories

• Major/content categories• noun• verb• adjective• adverb• preposition/postposition?

• Minor/functional categories• determiner: article, quantifier, demonstrative• pronoun• negation• conjunction: coordinating, subordinating• auxiliary verb?

• Interjection


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A fragment of a grammar of English• “A grammar is an explicit set of rules for distinguishing the

well-formed sentences of a language from those that are ill-formed (ungrammatical).”

• We have already seen a fragment of a grammar of English:① S → NP VP

② VP → V NP


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What is syntactic processing?• “Narrowly defined, syntactic processing involves the

assignment of syntactic structure to word strings that qualify as a ‘sentences’”, e.g. "Mary kissed John".

• [S [NP Mary] [VP kissed [NP John]]]


S

NPMary

VP

Vkissed

NPJohn

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But …• … we very often utter incomplete sentences:

a) Who kissed John?

b) Mary.

c) What did Mary do?

d) Kiss John.

• So the missing information can be filled in by the context:a) Who kissed John?

b) [S Mary [VP Ø]]

c) What did Mary do?

d) [S [NP Ø] [VP kiss John]]


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Compositionality• Compare these next two sentences:

1. Mary kicked the mule.

2. Mary kicked the bucket.

• #2 has two readingsa. Mary applied force to the bucket with her foot.

b. Mary died.

• In the (a) reading, the sentence means what the sum of its words mean; in the (b) reading, it means something special, not predictable from the individual words.• This happens in morphology, too:

a. the past tense of depart: departed

b. the past tense of go: *goed, went

• We call the (a) readings compositional, while the (b) readings are non-compositional or lexical.


SYNTAX 2

11/11/15 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 11

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Another example• “A cat is on the couch.”• We need to augment our grammar:

③ NP → Det N, where Det is one of {a(n), the, some}

④ VP → V PP

⑤ PP → P NP, where P is one of {on, in, at, by, etc.}

• Write down the syntactic structure for this example:• [S [NP a cat] [VP is [PP on [NP the couch]]]]


S

NPa cat

VP

Vis

PPon the couch

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The problem of assigning syntactic structure in real time• So, how did you do that?• You assigned a syntactic (or structural) description to the

sentence, following the rules of the grammar, presumably from left to right, which is a process known as performing a derivation.

• It is also known as parsing the sentence:• "to state the parts of speech in a sentence”, 1550s, • verb use of M.E. pars (n.) "part of speech" (c.1300), • from O.Fr. pars, pl. of part "part”,• from L. pars (see part (n.)) in school question, Quae pars orationis?

"What part of speech?"


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=part&allowed_in_frame=0

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Start with the first word“A cat is on the couch.”

• A – what do we know about it?• Determiner, indefinite, singular = Lexical Access and Feature Retrieval

(LAFR)• What does our grammar tell us about a determiner (Det)?

• It is followed by a noun, so let’s look for one to the right.• And by the way, it should be singular, to agree with the determiner.

• Cat – what do we know about it?• Noun, singular (LAFR)• We also know a lot about the meaning of ‘cat’, but this theory of syntax

assumes that meaning is not relevant to the parse.• What does our grammar tell us about Det+N?

• That they form an NP, so let’s merge them into one:• [NP [Det a] [N cat]]

• What does our grammar tell us about NP?• It is followed by a (tensed) verb, so let’s seek one to the right.

• Do the rest of the derivation yourself.


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Models of sentence processing• Traditional generative model

• A separate mental module parses sentences just like we just did. • Lexical access happens first.• Then one syntactic hypothesis is considered at a time.• There is no influence of meaning.

• More recent interactive model• There is no separate module for parsing• Lexical access, syntactic structure assignment, and meaning

assignment happen at the same time (in parallel).• Several syntactic hypotheses can be considered at a time.

• How to decide?• Agrammatism


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The lexical interface


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But first, a review: Thematic roles• What is a thematic role?• List of roles

• AGENT• EXPERIENCER• THEME• GOAL• SOURCE• LOCATION• RECIPIENT• INSTRUMENT


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Review: Thematic roles

a. John gave a tomato to Mary.

b. John gave Mary a tomato.

c. A brilliant idea occurred to Mary.

d. Mary hates tomatoes.

a. AGENT gave THEME to RECEIPIENT

b. AGENT gave RECEIPIENT THEME

c. THEME occurred to EXPERIENCER

d. EXPERIENCER hates THEME


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Syntax vs pragmatics• How about these?

1) The cop arrested the teenagers.

2) The teenagers arrested the cop.

• How can we tell the difference?• Syntactic info:

• Subject agrees with verb;• subject precedes verb;• subject tends to be AGENT.• Direct object follows verb;• direct object tends to be THEME.

• Pragmatic info:• Police are typical arresters; • teenagers are typical arrestees.

• Note that syntax overrides pragmatics in (2).


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The two main aphasiasIngram p. 49

Broca’s

• C: What brought you to the hospital?

• P: yes … ah … Monday … ah … Dad … Peter Hogan, and Dad … ah … hospital … and ah … Wednesday … Wednesday … nine o’clock and ah Thursday … ten o’clock … doctors two … two … an doctors and … ah … teeth … yah … and a doctor an girl … and gums, an I.

Wernicke’s

• C: What brings you to the hospital?

• Boy, I’m sweating, I’m awful nervous, you know, once in a while I get caught up, I can’t mention the tarripote, a month ago, quite a little, I’ve done a lot well, I impose a lot, while on the other hand, you know what I mean, I have to run around, look it over, trebbin and all that sort of stuff.


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Agrammatic aphasia (agrammatism)One aspect of Broca’s aphasia

• Agrammatic aphasiacs may overlook agreement, but they are still sensitive to word order.

• However, they often rely on pragmatics, so they may understand (2) to mean (1):1) The cop arrested the teenagers.

2) The teenagers arrested the cop.


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Public service announcement• What is a Ponzi scheme?• How is the passive voice formed?

• (someone) ended the Ponzi scheme quickly.• AGENT THEME

• The Ponzi scheme was ended quickly

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_passive_voice• Two sentences later, Madoff said, "When I began the Ponzi scheme, I

believed it would end shortly, and I would be able to extricate myself, and my clients, from the scheme." As he read this, he betrayed no sense of how absurd it was to use the passive voice in regard to his scheme, as if it were a spell of bad weather that had descended on him . . . In most of the rest of the statement, one not only heard the aggrieved passive voice, but felt the hand of a lawyer: "To the best of my recollection, my fraud began in the early nineteen-nineties."[9]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_passive_voice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_passive_voice

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Active vs. passive sentences

• Ask the patient to point to the picture in which • The dog bit the postman.• The dog was bitten by

the postman.


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Reversible sentences • Agrammatic aphasiacs find the following reversible active

sentences to be difficult to understand (75% accuracy):3) The dancer applauded the actor.

4) The actor applauded the dancer.

• Reversible passive sentences are even harder (50% accuracy):5) The actor was applauded by the dancer.


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Conclusions• It may be that agrammatic aphasiacs rely on a rule of

thumb (heuristic) based on the canonical word order of English or other frequent coincidences:a) The NP which precedes the verb is assigned the thematic role of

AGENT.

b) The NP which follows the preposition by is assigned the thematic role of AGENT.

• How they help• (a) helps agrammatic aphasiacs understand reversible active

sentences.• (a) and (b) conflict in reversible passive sentences, so agrammatic

aphasiacs do worse (they guess).


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Final project• Improve a Wikipedia article about any of the topics

mentioned in class or any other topic broadly related to neurolinguistics.

• Write a short essay explaining what you did and why you did it.

• Print the article before you improve it, highlighting any subtractions.

• Print the article after you improve it, highlighting your additions.


NEXT TIMEMore syntax

11/11/15 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 27

syntax 2 nov 11, 2015 – day 32 brain & language ling 4110-4890-5110-7960 nsci 4110-4891-6110...

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