Download or read book On Sentence Interpretation written by Lyn Frazier and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At present there exists no empirically-motivated theory of how perceivers assign a grammatically-permissible interpretation to a sentence. Implicit in many investigations of language comprehension is the idea that each constituent of a sentence is interpreted by the perceiver at the earliest conceivable point, using all potentially relevant sources of information. A variety of counter examples are presented to argue against this implicit theory of sentence interpretation. It is argued that an explicit alternative theory is needed to specify which decisions are made at which points during interpretive processing and to spell out the principles governing the processor's preferred choice at points of ambiguity or uncertainty. Several specific issues are taken concerning how the processor assigns a focal structure to an input sentence, how it identifies the topic of the sentence, how implicit restrictors on the domain of quantification are interpreted and how the identification of the content of a restrictor may guide the processor's use of discourse information. Exploiting intuitions about preferred interpretations of ambiguous sentences as well as the results of both old and new experimental studies, a theory of the preferred interpretation of Determiner Phrases is presented. This work explores important, but overlooked questions in on-line sentence interpretation and attempts to erect some of the scaffolding for an eventual theory of sentence interpretation.
Download or read book Perspectives on Sentence Processing written by Charles Clifton, Jr. and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the liveliest forums for sharing psychological, linguistic, philosophical, and computer science perspectives on psycholinguistics has been the annual meeting of the CUNY Sentence Processing Conference. Documenting the state of the art in several important approaches to sentence processing, this volume consists of selected papers that had been presented at the Sixth CUNY Conference. The editors not only present the main themes that ran through the conference but also honor the breadth of the presentations from disciplines including linguistics, experimental psychology, and computer science. The variety of sentence processing topics examined includes: * how evoked brain potentials reflect sentence comprehension * how auditory words are processed * how various sources of grammatical and nongrammatical information are coordinated and used * how sentence processing and language acquisition might be related. This distinctive volume not only presents the most exciting current work in sentence processing, but also places this research into the broader context of theorizing about it.
Download or read book Meaning Use and Interpretation of Language written by Rainer Bäuerle and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 1983 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Approaches to Language Data Theory and Explanation written by Ángel J. Gallego and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2020-12-24 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of language has changed substantially in the last decades. In particular, the development of new technologies has allowed the emergence of new experimental techniques which complement more traditional approaches to data in linguistics (like informal reports of native speakers’ judgments, surveys, corpus studies, or fieldwork). This move is an enriching feature of contemporary linguistics, allowing for a better understanding of a phenomenon as complex as natural language, where all sorts of factors (internal and external to the individual) interact (Chomsky 2005). This has generated some sort of divergence not only in research approaches, but also in the phenomena studied, with an increasing specialization between subfields and accounts. At the same time, it has also led to subfield isolation and methodological a priori, with some researchers even claiming that theoretical linguistics has little to offer to cognitive science (see for instance Edelman & Christiansen 2003). We believe that this view of linguistics (and cognitive science as a whole) is misguided, and that the complementarity of different approaches to such a multidimensional phenomenon as language should be highlighted for convergence and further development of its scientific study (see also Jackendoff 1988, 2007; Phillips & Lasnik 2003; den Dikken, Bernstein, Tortora & Zanuttini 2007; Sprouse, Schütze & Almeida 2013; Phillips 2013).
Download or read book Meaning in Law written by Charles W. Collier and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Existing theories of the First Amendment's protection of speech proceed on the basis of legal doctrine and judicial decision making, social and political philosophy, or legal and intellectual history. Meaning in Law: A Theory of Speech adopts a new approach and develops a general legal theory of speech on the basis of linguistic theory and the philosophy of language. Meaning in Law: A Theory of Speech retraces the main conceptual stages in the expression of meaning, from natural notions of meaningfulness, through symbolism, to signification. The book focuses on three failed attempts to demarcate the boundaries of "speech" in the constitutional sense (prior restraints, obscenity, and defamation) and then introduces the theory of symbolic speech as the key to developing a general legal theory of speech. Providing an overview of his theory, including such concepts as "Signaling of Intent" and "Establishing a Convention," author Charles Collier applies these insights to the case law of symbolic speech and resolves some basic confusion in the legal literature. The analysis relies on an original distinction between actual conduct and the "ideal conduct" described in a statute. The former may be described as both communicative and noncommunicative, while the latter has already been conceptualized as either communicative or noncommunicative. The author argues this distinction clears up a major legal quandary: how conduct that can be described as communication may nevertheless be regulated or prohibited, without running afoul of the First Amendment's protection of speech.
Download or read book Ordinary Meaning written by Brian G. Slocum and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A legal scholar offers a bold new framework for legal interpretation with this “deep, thoughtful, and useful examination . . . of legal meaning” (William Eskridge, Yale University). Consider a criminal sentencing provision that calls for enhanced punishment if a defendant “uses” a firearm during a drug crime. Has a defendant violated the provision if he trades a gun for drugs? Did he “use” the gun in the intended sense? This sort of question is at the heart of legal interpretation. Legal interpretation typically follows the doctrine of “ordinary meaning” —which is to say that words in legal texts should be interpreted in light of accepted standards of communication. Yet often, courts fail to properly consider context, refer to unsuitable dictionary definitions, or otherwise misconceive how the ordinary meaning of words should be determined. In this book, Brian Slocum argues for a new method of interpretation by asking glaring, yet largely ignored, questions. What makes one particular meaning the “ordinary” one, and how exactly do courts conceptualize the elements of ordinary meaning? Ordinary Meaning provides a much-needed reassessment of how the components of ordinary meaning should properly be identified and developed in our modern legal system.
Download or read book The Emergence of Meaning written by Stephen Crain and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into the underlying logic of human languages which looks at how children acquire English and Mandarin.
Download or read book Interpreting Chinese Interpreting China written by Robin Setton and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session
Download or read book Principle B VP Ellipsis and Interpretation in Child Grammar written by Rosalind Thornton and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first experimental study of Principle B with verb phrase ellipsis and properties of the interpretation of empty pronouns in ellipsis. Among the universal principles are those known as the principles of the binding theory. These principles constrain the range of interpretations that can be assigned to sentences containing reflexives and reciprocals, pronouns, and referring expressions. The principle that is relevant for pronouns, Principle B, has provided a fertile ground for the study of linguistic development. Although it has long been known that children make certain kinds of errors that appear to contradict this principle, further experimental and theoretical investigation reveals that the child does know the grammatical principle, but implements the pragmatic knowledge incorrectly. In fact, discoveries concerning children's knowledge of Principle B are among the most well-known in the study of language acquisition because of the dissociation between syntactic and pragmatic knowledge (binding versus reference). In this book the authors deepen and extend the results of years of developmental investigation of Principle B by studying the interaction of Principle B with verb phrase ellipsis and properties of the interpretation of empty pronouns in ellipsis--properties of "strict" and "sloppy" interpretation. This is the first experimental study of these topics in the developmental literature. The striking results show that detailed predictions from the "pragmatic deficiency" theory seem to be correct. Many novel experimental results concern the question of how children interpret pronouns, including elided pronouns, and how they understand VP ellipsis. The authors present the necessary theoretical background on Principle B, review and critique previous accounts of childrens errors, and present a novel account of why children misinterpret pronouns. The book will thus be of interest not only to readers interested in the development of the binding theory, but to those interested in the development of interpretation and reference by children.
Download or read book Sentence Comprehension written by David J. Townsend and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using sentence comprehension as a case study for all of cognitive science, David Townsend and Thomas Bever offer an integration of two major approaches, the symbolic-computational and the associative-connectionist. The symbolic-computational approach emphasizes the formal manipulation of symbols that underlies creative aspects of language behavior. The associative-connectionist approach captures the intuition that most behaviors consist of accumulated habits. The authors argue that the sentence is the natural level at which associative and symbolic information merge during comprehension. The authors develop and support an analysis-by-synthesis model that integrates associative and symbolic information in sentence comprehension. This integration resolves problems each approach faces when considered independently. The authors review classic and contemporary symbolic and associative theories of sentence comprehension, and show how recent developments in syntactic theory fit well with the integrated analysis-by-synthesis model. They offer analytic, experimental, and neurological evidence for their model and discuss its implications for broader issues in cognitive science, including the logical necessity of an integration of symbolic and connectionist approaches in the field.
Download or read book Use conditional Meaning written by Daniel Gutzmann and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to bring together the pragmatic theory of 'meaning as use' with the traditional semantic approach that considers meaning in terms of truth conditions. Daniel Gutzmann's new approach captures the entire meaning of complex expressions and overcomes the empirical gaps and conceptual problems associated with previous analyses.
Download or read book Mind Brain and Language written by Marie T. Banich and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2003-10-17 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the groundbreaking work in many fields is now occurring at the intersection of traditional academic disciplines. This development is well demonstrated in this important and unique volume, which offers a multidisciplinary view of current findings and cutting-edge issues involving the relationship between mind, brain, and language. Marie T. Banich and Molly Mack have edited a collection of 11 invited chapters from top researchers (and have contributed two of their own chapters) to create a volume organized around five major topics--language emergence, influence, and development; models of language and language processing; the neurological bases of language; language disruption and loss; and dual-language systems. Topics range from the evolution of language and child-language acquisition to brain imaging and the "bilingual brain." To maintain continuity throughout, care has been taken to ensure that the chapters have been written in a style accessible to scholars across many disciplines, from anthropology and psycholinguistics to cognitive science and neurobiology. Because of its depth and breadth, this book is appropriate both as a textbook in a variety of undergraduate and graduate-level courses and as a valuable resource for researchers and scholars interested in further understanding the background of and current developments in our understanding of the mind/brain/language relationship.
Download or read book Plain Language written by Stefano Rastelli and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-11-29 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plain Language: A Psycholinguistic Approach employs principles from the field of psycholinguistics to explore factors that make a sentence or text easy or difficult to process by the cognitive mechanisms that support language processing, and describes how levels of difficulty might function within bureaucratic power structures. Drawing from experimental data on readability, the author employs a metaphor of three "ghost" readers in the mind that exist and interact with each other: the syntactic reader (the one searching for the structure), the statistical reader (the one driven by previous experiences), and finally the pragmatic reader (the one searching for meaning). The penultimate chapter concerns a novel psycholinguistic experiment showing that complexly written texts may prevent adult citizens with average literacy skills from accessing important information related to their health, work, and right to representation, thereby drawing a line between the psycholinguistics of language comprehension and the maintenance of existing power structures. Written in plain language itself, this book is designed to be easily understandable from an undergraduate level and makes for fascinating reading for all students and researchers in linguistics and psycholinguistics, as well as supplementary reading for students of sociolinguistics and related modules. Students, researchers, and interested general readers will develop an understanding that knowing how the mind reads and understands language can help stakeholders to ensure equal access to information and democratic processes.
Download or read book Topics on Relevance Theory written by and published by EDIPUCRS. This book was released on 2010 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stevens Handbook of Experimental Psychology Memory and Cognitive Processes written by Douglas Medin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2004-02-05 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in paperback. This revised and updated edition of the definitive resource for experimental psychology offers comprehensive coverage of the latest findings in the field, as well as the most recent contributions in methodology and the explosion of research in neuroscience. Volume Two: Memory and Cognitive Processes, focuses on the neurological and cognitive processes on topics such as memory, decision-making, spatial cognition, linguistics, reasoning, and concepts.
Download or read book Linguistics of American Sign Language written by Clayton Valli and published by Gallaudet University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New 4th Edition completely revised and updated with new DVD now available; ISBN 1-56368-283-4.
Download or read book Sentence Processing written by Roger P. G. van Gompel and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the psychological processes involved in comprehending sentences? How do we process the structure of sentences and how do we understand their meaning? Do children, bilinguals and people with language impairments process sentences in the same way as healthy monolingual adults? These are just some of the many questions that sentence processing researchers have tried to answer by conducting ever more sophisticated experiments, making this one of the most productive and exciting areas in experimental language research in recent years. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this important field. It contains 10 chapters written by world-leading experts, which discuss influential theories of sentence processing and important experimental evidence, with a focus on recent developments in the area. The chapters also analyse research that has investigated how people process the structure and meaning of sentences, and how sentences are understood within their context. This comprehensive and authoritative work will appeal to students and researchers in the field of sentence processing, as well anyone with an interest in psychology and linguistics.
