Understanding how input matters: verb learning and the footprint of universal grammar

Studies under the heading "syntactic bootstrapping" have demonstrated that syntax guides young children's interpretations during verb learning. We evaluate two hypotheses concerning the origins of syntactic bootstrapping effects. The "universalist" view, holding that syntactic bootstrapping falls out from universal properties of the syntax-semantics mapping, is shown to be superior to the "emergentist" view, which holds that argument structure patterns emerge from a process of categorization and generalization over the input. These theories diverge in their predictions about a language in which syntactic structure is not the most reliable cue to a certain meaning. In Kannada, causative morphology is a better predictor of causative meaning than transitivity is. Hence, the emergentist view predicts that Kannada-speaking children will associate causative morphology (in favor of transitive syntax) with causative meaning. The universalist theory, however, predicts the opposite pattern. Using an act-out task, we found that 3-year-old native speakers of Kannada associate argument number and not morphological form with causativity, supporting the universalist approach.     

How language relates to belief,desire, and emotion understanding

Two experiments examined syntax and semantics as correlates of theory-of-mind (ToM). In Experiment 1 children’s language was examined at 3 years of age in relation to ToM at 3, 3.5, 4, and 5.5 years. Semantics predicted unique variance in later belief understanding but not desire understanding. Syntax did not explain unique variance in belief or desire. In Experiment 2 two measures of syntax and a measure of semantics were used with 65 3–5-year-olds. The syntax measures tested children’s understanding of word order and embedded clauses. They were related to false belief, but contrary to some predictions, were also related to emotion recognition. Performance on language control tasks with low syntactic demands correlated equally well with false belief. In both experiments performance on the syntax and semantics tasks was highly inter-correlated. We argue that ToM is related to general language ability rather than syntax or semantics per se.     

A critique of Mark D. Allen's "the preservation of verb subcategory knowledge in a spoken language comprehension deficit"

Allen [Allen, M. (2005). The preservation of verb subcategory knowledge in a spoken language comprehension deficit. Brain and Language, 95, 255-264.] reports a single patient, WBN, who, during spoken language comprehension, is still able to access some of the syntactic properties of verbs despite being unable to access some of their semantic properties. Allen claims that these findings challenge linguistic theories which assume that much of the syntactic behavior of verbs can be predicted from their meanings. I argue, however, that this conclusion is not supported by the data for two reasons: first, Allen focuses on aspects of verb syntax that are not claimed to be influenced by verb semantics; and second, he ignores aspects of verb syntax that are claimed to be influenced by verb semantics.     

Semantic weight and verb retrieval in aphasia

Individuals with agrammatic aphasia may have difficulty with verb production in comparison to nouns. Additionally, they may have greater difficulty producing verbs that have fewer semantic components (i.e., are semantically "light") compared to verbs that have greater semantic weight. A connectionist verb-production model proposed by Gordon and Dell (2003) learns through error correction to "divide the labor" between syntax and semantics. Verbs that are semantically heavier come to depend less on syntax and more on semantics. For lighter verbs, the reverse is true. We performed this study to clarify the role of semantic weight in aphasic verb production and to test the prediction from Gordon and Dell that a brain lesion that impairs the syntactic input to verb retrieval will impair lighter verbs more than heavier ones. Consistent with this prediction, we found that the decrement for lighter verbs was present in a group with agrammatic aphasia but not in a matched group without agrammatism.     

The Gradual Deterioration of Syntax and Semantics in a Patient with Progressive Aphasia

FM is a progressive aphasic patient whose language comprehension we studied over a 4-year period. We developed a variety of implicit and explicit tasks to chart progressive changes in the representation of linguistic knowledge (in particular, syntax and semantics) and the automatic and controlled processes which operate on that knowledge. The representation of FM's semantic knowledge remained essentially intact over the years, but she became increasingly impaired at combining the meanings of words. She also showed progressive impairments in the processes of syntactic combination. Thus, FM's disease resulted in a progressive inability to engage in those combinatorial processes necessary for the normal comprehension of a spoken utterance. This is not a selective deficit in the traditional sense of the term, since aspects of both syntax and semantics are implicated; but it is selective in the sense that other aspects of language comprehension remain intact.     

组合原则

组合原则是逻辑语义学的基本原则,表现为函项的思想和句法与语义的对应。就构造逻辑系统而言,组合原则是一种方法论。作为延伸到自然语言形式语义学的产物,组合原则起到一种核心灵魂的作用。组合原则在理论层面和应用领域皆获得一些有价值的结果。自然语言违反组合原则的实例主要表现为歧义现象、语用因素和句法与语义不对应的情况,这正是调整组合原则的适用条件从而促进形式语义学发展的契机。     

句子理解的关键——对句法和语义关系的再探讨

对于句子理解中句法和语义的关系,传统的模块化观点认为,句法信息优先于语义信息,句法加工支配着句子的理解过程。近期,这种强调句法优先的理论受到了一系列ERP（Event-related potentials）研究结果的挑战,这些研究从不同角度论证了语义信息对句法加工及句子整合加工的重要作用。基于这些研究发现,研究者提出句子理解过程中句法和语义的关系并非一成不变：一些情况下可能是句法支配语义加工,而另一些情况下则可能是语义引导句法加工     

Inductive acuity and the acquisition of language

This study attempted to assess the inductive explanation of language acquisition. It was predicted that inductive acuity, operationally defined by reference to Kagan's concept of Reflection-Impulsivity, would facilitate syntactic and semantic development. Results indicated that children who are superior inductors scored higher on semantic tests, but not on syntactic tests. It was suggested that distinct learning strategies may be involved in the acquisition of syntax and semantics. Various theoretical implications of these findings for models of language encoding were discussed. Suggestions for subsequent research were offered.     

Predicted errors in children's early sentence comprehension

Children use syntax to interpret sentences and learn verbs; this is syntactic bootstrapping. The structure-mapping account of early syntactic bootstrapping proposes that a partial representation of sentence structure, the set of nouns occurring with the verb, guides initial interpretation and provides an abstract format for new learning. This account predicts early successes, but also telltale errors: Toddlers should be unable to tell transitive sentences from other sentences containing two nouns. In testing this prediction, we capitalized on evidence that 21-month-olds use what they have learned about noun order in English sentences to understand new transitive verbs. In two experiments, 21-month-olds applied this noun-order knowledge to two-noun intransitive sentences, mistakenly assigning different interpretations to "The boy and the girl are gorping!" and "The girl and the boy are gorping!". This suggests that toddlers exploit partial representations of sentence structure to guide sentence interpretation; these sparse representations are useful, but error-prone.     

The brain circuitry of syntactic comprehension

Syntactic comprehension is a fundamental aspect of human language, and has distinct properties from other aspects of language (e.g. semantics). In this article, we aim to identify if there is a specific locus of syntax in the brain by reviewing imaging studies on syntactic processing. We conclude that results from neuroimaging support evidence from neuropsychology that syntactic processing does not recruit one specific area. Instead a network of areas including Broca's area and anterior, middle and superior areas of the temporal lobes is involved. However, none of these areas appears to be syntax specific.     

Husserl on Meaning,Grammar, and the Structure of Content

Husserl’s Logical Grammar is intended to explain how complex expressions can be constructed out of simple ones so that their meaning turns out to be determined by the meanings of their constituent parts and the way they are put together. Meanings are thus understood as structured contents and classified into formal categories to the effect that the logical properties of expressions reflect their grammatical properties. As long as linguistic meaning reduces to the intentional content of pre-linguistic representations, however, it is not trivial to account for how semantics relates to syntax in this context. In this paper, I analyze Husserl’s Logical Grammar as a system of recursive rules operating on representations and suggest that the syntactic form of representations (both mental and linguistic) contributes to their semantics because it carries information about semantic role. I further discuss Husserl’s syntactic account of the unity of propositions and argue that, on this  account, logical form supervenes on syntactic form. In the last section I draw some implications for the phenomenology of thought and conjecture that the structural features it displays are likely to convey the syntactic structures of an underlying language-like representational system.     

The simpler syntax hypothesis

What roles do syntax and semantics have in the grammar of a language? What are the consequences of these roles for syntactic structure, and why does it matter? We sketch the Simpler Syntax Hypothesis, which holds that much of the explanatory role attributed to syntax in contemporary linguistics is properly the responsibility of semantics. This rebalancing permits broader coverage of empirical linguistic phenomena and promises a tighter integration of linguistic theory into the cognitive scientific enterprise. We suggest that the general perspective of the Simpler Syntax Hypothesis is well suited to approaching language processing and language evolution, and to computational applications that draw upon linguistic insights.     

Memory for syntax despite amnesia

Syntactic persistence is a tendency for speakers to reproduce sentence structures independently of accompanying meanings, words, or sounds. The memory mechanisms behind syntactic persistence are not fully understood. Although some properties of syntactic persistence suggest a role for procedural memory, current evidence suggests that procedural memory (unlike declarative memory) does not maintain the abstract, relational features that are inherent to syntactic structures. In a study evaluating the contribution of procedural memory to syntactic persistence, patients with anterograde amnesia and matched control speakers reproduced prime sentences with different syntactic structures; reproduced 0, 1, 6, or 10 neutral sentences; then spontaneously described pictures that elicited the primed structures; and finally made recognition judgments for the prime sentences. Amnesic and control speakers showed significant and equivalent syntactic persistence, despite the amnesic speakers' profoundly impaired recognition memory for the primes. Thus, syntax is maintained by procedural-memory mechanisms. This result reveals that procedural memory is capable of supporting abstract, relational knowledge.     

Becoming syntactic

Psycholinguistic research has shown that the influence of abstract syntactic knowledge on performance is shaped by particular sentences that have been experienced. To explore this idea, the authors applied a connectionist model of sentence production to the development and use of abstract syntax. The model makes use of (a) error-based learning to acquire and adapt sequencing mechanisms and (b) meaning-form mappings to derive syntactic representations. The model is able to account for most of what is known about structural priming in adult speakers, as well as key findings in preferential looking and elicited production studies of language acquisition. The model suggests how abstract knowledge and concrete experience are balanced in the development and use of syntax.     

How language does (and does not) relate to theory of mind: A longitudinal study of syntax,semantics, working memory and false belief

Forty‐four children (mean 3.8 years) were given three false belief, a working memory, and four language tasks (each designed to tap a different aspect of syntax or semantics), and were tested again 6 months later. Once the range of scores in the language and false belief tasks were equated, there was a bidirectional relation between language and theory of mind. There was no evidence for syntax playing a unique role in the contribution of language to theory of mind. No one measure of syntax or semantics was more likely than any other to predict later false belief. Nor was false belief related more to one aspect of later language (syntax vs. semantics) than another. Our data, taken with other findings, are consistent with the idea that both syntax and semantics contribute to false belief understanding. Working memory did not mediate the relation between language and theory of mind, nor did it facilitate later false belief.     

The input to verb learning in Mandarin Chinese: a role for syntactic bootstrapping

The authors investigated the role of syntax in verb learning in Mandarin Chinese, which allows pervasive ellipsis of noun arguments. Two questions were investigated using the Beijing corpus on CHILDES: (a) Does the input to young children manifest syntactic-semantic correspondences as needed for acquiring verb meanings? (b) Are verbs presented in multiple frames? Over 6,000 child-directed utterances were parsed. Analyses revealed that transitive verbs, motion verbs, and internal/communication verbs were distinguished syntactically; moreover, the 60 target verbs were used in multiple sentence frames. These findings support a role for syntactic bootstrapping in Mandarin verb learning.     

Learning words and rules: abstract knowledge of word order in early sentence comprehension

Children quickly acquire basic grammatical facts about their native language. Does this early syntactic knowledge involve knowledge of words or rules? According to lexical accounts of acquisition, abstract syntactic and semantic categories are not primitive to the language-acquisition system; thus, early language comprehension and production are based on verb-specific knowledge. The present experiments challenge this account: We probed the abstractness of young children's knowledge of syntax by testing whether 25- and 21-month-olds extend their knowledge of English word order to new verbs. In four experiments, children used word order appropriately to interpret transitive sentences containing novel verbs. These findings demonstrate that although toddlers have much to learn about their native languages, they represent language experience in terms of an abstract mental vocabulary. These abstract representations allow children to rapidly detect general patterns in their native language, and thus to learn rules as well as words from the start.     

Conversation level syntax similarity metric

The syntax and semantics of human language can illuminate many individual psychological differences and important dimensions of social interaction. Accordingly, psychological and psycholinguistic research has begun incorporating sophisticated representations of semantic content to better understand the connection between word choice and psychological processes. In this work we introduce ConversAtion level Syntax SImilarity Metric (CASSIM), a novel method for calculating conversation-level syntax similarity. CASSIM estimates the syntax similarity between conversations by automatically generating syntactical representations of the sentences in conversation, estimating the structural differences between them, and calculating an optimized estimate of the conversation-level syntax similarity. After introducing and explaining this method, we report results from two method validation experiments (Study 1) and conduct a series of analyses with CASSIM to investigate syntax accommodation in social media discourse (Study 2). We run the same experiments using two well-known existing syntactic metrics, LSM and Coh-Metrix, and compare their results to CASSIM. Overall, our results indicate that CASSIM is able to reliably measure syntax similarity and to provide robust evidence of syntax accommodation within social media discourse.     

Quantity judgments and individuation: evidence that mass nouns count

Three experiments explored the semantics of the mass-count distinction in young children and adults. In Experiments 1 and 2, the quantity judgments of participants provided evidence that some mass nouns refer to individuals, as such. Participants judged one large portion of stuff to be "more" than three tiny portions for substance-mass nouns (e.g. mustard, ketchup), but chose according to number for count nouns (e.g. shoes, candles) and object-mass nouns (e.g. furniture, jewelry). These results suggest that some mass nouns quantify over individuals, and that therefore reference to individuals does not distinguish count nouns from mass nouns. Thus, Experiments 1 and 2 failed to support the hypothesis that there exist one-to-one mappings between mass-count syntax and semantics for either adults or young children. In Experiment 3, it was found that for mass-count flexible terms (e.g. string, stone) participants based quantity judgments on number when the terms were used with count syntax, but on total amount of stuff when used with mass syntax. Apparently, the presence of discrete physical objects in a scene (e.g. stones) is not sufficient to permit quantity judgments based on number. It is proposed that object-mass nouns (e.g. furniture) can be used to refer to individuals due to lexically specified grammatical features that normally occur in count syntax. Also, we suggest that children learning language parse words that refer to individuals as count nouns unless given morpho-syntactic and referential evidence to the contrary, in which case object-mass nouns are acquired.