The Language Instinct Talking Heads Construing the

The Language Instinct Talking Heads

Construing the Meaning Comprehension involves a process of finding subjects, verbs, objects and so on, that it takes place unconsciously • A dog bites a man. • A man bites a dog. • A man is bitten by a dog.

A definition of parser • Parser - the mental programme that analyses sentence structure during language comprehension

Components of a Simple Sentence • S NP VP • NP det N • VP V NP • N boy, girl, dog, cat, ice cream, candy, hot dogs, etc. • V eats, likes, bites, etc.

The dog likes ice cream det | the. . .

NP det the. . . N

The dog likes ice cream S NP det the. . . VP N

Difficulties with understading long, complicated phrases • Memory - one has to keep track of phrases that need particular words to complete them • Decision-making - when a word or phrase belongs to two different cagetories (eg. VP, NP), one has to decide which to use to build the next branch of the tree

Memory • Short term memory is the key tool in human information processing • Only a few items - plus or minus seven can be held in mind at once • The items are immediately subject to fading or being overwritten

Memory • Memory-stretching sentences • Onion sentences

The Memory-Stretching Sentence He gave the girl that he met in New York while visiting his parents for ten days around Christmas and New Year´s the candy.

He gave the candy to the girl that he met in New York while visiting his parents for ten days around Christmas and New Year´s.

Onion Sentences • The dog the stick the fire burned beat bit the cat. • The malt that the rat the cat killed ate lay in the house. • If if if it rains it pours I get depressed I should get help.

Onion Sentences • Onion sentences show that a grammar and a parser are different things • A person can recognise constructions that he or she can never understand.

“Can you do addition? ” the White Queen asked. “What´s one and one and one and one? “I don´t know, ” said Alice. “I lost count. ” “She can´t do Addition, ” the Red Queen interrupted.

• The human sentence parser keeps track of where it is in a sentence by writing a number in a slot next to each phrase type on a master checklist. • When a type of a sentence has to be remembered more than once - so that both it and the identical type of phrase it is inside of can be completed in order - there is not enough room on the checklist for both numbers to fit, and the phrases cannot be completed properly.

• The cheese that some rats that were chased by the cats that I feed ate turned out to be rancid.

Decision Making • Many words have more than one lexical entry (e. g. one can be either a determiner or a noun) thus a parser has to decide which option fits a sentence the best • Phrases can also go inside either a NP or a VP - so that it also may lead to ambiguities

• The plastic pencil marks. . . • The plastic pencil marks were ugly. • The plastic pencil marks easily.

• Ingres enjoyed painting his models nude. • Visiting relatives can be boring. • Vegetarians don´t know how good meat tastes. • I saw the man with the binoculars.

The Two Ways of Decision Making • Breadth-first search • Depth-first search

Garden Path Sentences • Sentences are not laid out with clear markers allowing the reader to stride confidently through to the end • Delays Dog Deaf-Mute Murder Trial • British Banks Soldier On • Family Leave Law a Landmark Not Only for Newborn´s Parents

Background Knowledge • Understanding is not possible unless interlocutors share the same background assumptions. • This involves, for instance, cultural background, knowledge of recent facts, etc. • Woman: I´m leaving you. • Man: Who is he?

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