An artificial opposition between grammaticality and frequency: comment on

In a recent Cognition paper (Cognition 85 (2002) B21), Bornkessel, Schlesewsky, and Friederici report ERP data that they claim “show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing” (p. B21). In this commentary we demonstrate that the posited contrast between grammatical principles and construction (in)frequency as sources of parsing problems is artificial because it is based on factually incorrect assumptions about the grammar of German and on inaccurate corpus frequency data concerning the German constructions involved.     

Grammar overrides frequency: evidence from the online processing of flexible word order

We show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing. Event-related brain potentials revealed that dative-marked objects in the initial position of an embedded sentence do not elicit a neurophysiologically distinct response from subjects, whereas accusative-marked objects do. These differences are predictable on the basis of grammatical distinctions (i.e. underlying linguistic properties), but not on the basis of frequency information (i.e. a superficial linguistic property). We therefore conclude that the former, but not the latter, guides syntactic integration during online parsing.     

“And yet it moves” or why grammar overrides frequency: a reply to Kempen and Harbusch

We show that Kempen and Harbusch's (Cognition (2003) this issue) arguments against our claims cannot be upheld. On the one hand, their alternative account of our data that is based on the availability of constructions with object-experiencer verbs is not compatible with the literature on the processing of these types of sentences in German. Moreover, their allegation that we failed to conduct an accurate corpus count is simply a misreading of our paper. Insofar, the commentary in no way casts doubt on our claim that grammatical regularities override frequency during online comprehension.     

Studying the grammatical aspects of word recognition: lexical priming,parsing, and syntactic ambiguity resolution

Two experiments are reported examining the relationship between lexical and syntactic processing during language comprehension, combining techniques common to the on-line study of syntactic ambiguity resolution with priming techniques common to the study of lexical processing. By manipulating grammatical properties of lexical primes, we explore how lexically based knowledge is activated and guides combinatory sentence processing. Particularly, we find that nouns (like verbs, see Trueswell & Kim, 1998) can activate detailed lexically specific syntactic information and that these representations guide the resolution of relevant syntactic ambiguities pertaining to verb argument structure. These findings suggest that certain principles of knowledge representation common to theories of lexical knowledge—such as overlapping and distributed representations—also characterize grammatical knowledge. Additionally, observations from an auditory comprehension study suggest similar conclusions about the lexical nature of parsing in spoken language comprehension. They also suggest that thematic role and syntactic preferences are activated during word recognition and that both influence combinatory processing.     

Seven principles of surface structure parsing in natural language

In generative grammar there is a traditional distinction between sentence acceptability, having to do with performance, and sentence grammaticality, having to do with competence. The attempt of this paper is to provide a characterization of the notion ‘acceptable sentence’ in English, with some suggestions as to how this characterization might be made universal. The procedure is to outline a set of procedures which are conjectured to be operative in the assignment of a surface structure tree to an input sentence. To some extent, these principles of parsing are modeled on certain parsing techniques formulated by computer scientists for computer languages. These principles account for the high acceptability of right branching structures, outline the role of grammatical function words in sentence perception, describe what seems to be a fixed limit on short-term memory in linguistic processing, and hypothesize the structure of the internal syntactic processing devices. The operation of various classes of transformations with regard to preparing deep structures for input to parsing procedures such as those outlined in the paper is discussed.     

Role of grammatical gender and semantics in German word production

Semantic substitution errors (e.g., saying "arm" when "leg" is intended) are among the most common types of errors occurring during spontaneous speech. It has been shown that grammatical gender of German target nouns is preserved in the errors (E. Mane, 1999). In 3 experiments, the authors explored different accounts of the grammatical gender preservation effect in German. In all experiments, semantic substitution errors were induced using a continuous naming paradigm. In Experiment 1, it was found that gender preservation disappeared when speakers produced bare nouns. Gender preservation was found when speakers produced phrases with determiners marked for gender (Experiment 2) but not when the produced determiners were not marked for gender (Experiment 3). These results are discussed in the context of models of lexical retrieval during production.     

Parsing theory and phrase-order variation in German V2 clauses

This paper examines the syntactic processing of structural ambiguities in German verbsecond (V2) clauses. It is argued that the proposal of Grimshaw (1991, 1993) that CP and IP are verbal extended projections allows an incremental parse of these ambiguities which is consistent with the principles of simplicity(no vacuous structure building) and structural determinism(computed dominance and precedence relations cannot be altered by parser-internal operations) proposed in Gorrell (1995). It is argued that the ambiguities discussed here provide evidence against the hypothesis that the parser's initial attachment decisions follow from a maximal-licensing principle rather than a preference for minimal structure (Pritchett, 1992). Further, it is argued that, contra Fodor and Inoue (1994), theories of syntactic processing must not only incorporate some mechanism for resolving conflicts between new input and computed structure, but also distinguish the comparative costs of different reanalysis types.This is a condensed version of Gorrell (1996a). In this paper I discuss only a few of the relevant structures in German. The longer paper examines the processing ofwh-strucrures and verb-final clauses in German, omitted here. For a more detailed discussion of the properties of the parsing model outlined here, see Gorrell (1995).Many thanks are due to Gisbert Fanselow, Peter Staudacher, Matthias Schlesewsky, and Craig Thiersch for helpful comments and criticisms. This paper was written while I was a member of the University of Potsdam Linguistics Department and I want to thank Ria De Bleser, Jürgen Weissenborn, and the students in my seminars on parsing theory for helping to make Potsdam a good place to work. Jutta Kasprzik deserves special thanks for favors too numerous to list. I also want to thank audiences at the University of Jena and the workshop on sentence processing at the Einstein Forum, Potsdam.     

The effects of learning two languages on levels of metalinguistic awareness

The purpose of this study is to determine whether a bilingual environment-the juxtaposition of two language systems learned simultaneously-enhances children's awareness of the language(s) they are learning to speak. The study explores the development of metalinguistic awareness at three different levels of explicit knowledge about language in monolingual children, and assesses the effects of a bilingual experience on this developmental process. To observe the development of metalinguistic awareness and to test the bilingual hypothesis, we compared metalinguistic skills in 32 Spanish-speaking and 32 English-speaking monolinguals and in 32 Spanish-English bilinguals aged 4:5 to 8:0. The Spanish and English metalinguistic tests each contained 15 different ungrammatical constructions (e.g., "Steven and Robert is a brother") and 15 grammatically correct "fillers." For each item, the children were asked in the appropriate language to note whether the construction was correct or incorrect, to correct the errors they noted, and to explain why those errors were wrong. We found that the monolingual children followed the same sequence in acquiring the ability to detect, to correct, and to explain grammatical errors; in particular, they progressed from a content-based orientation to a form-based orientation to language at each of the three levels. However, we noted different outcomes in terms of the types of grammatical constructions that were easy for monolinguals to master at each level-the constructions that were easy to detect and correct were distinct from those that were easy to explain. The bilingual experience was found to speed the transition from a content-based to a form-based approach to language at certain levels of awareness (detection and correction), but had less of an effect on explanations. Moreover, the bilingual experience did not appear to affect the types of grammatical constructions that were easy to master at any of the three levels. These data suggest that the experience of learning two languages hastens the development of certain metalinguistic skills in young children, but does not alter the course of that development. Thus, while learning two languages may enhance a speaker's "ear" for regularities of form, it does not appear to augment his grammatical "mind" for understanding those regularities.     

No grammatical gender effect on affective ratings: evidence from Italian and German languages

In this study, we tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by studying the effect of grammatical gender (feminine vs. masculine) on affective judgments of conceptual representation in Italian and German. In particular, we examined the within- and cross-language grammatical gender effect and its interaction with participants’ demographic characteristics (such as, the raters’ age and sex) on semantic differential scales (affective ratings of valence, arousal and dominance) in Italian and German speakers. We selected the stimuli and the relative affective measures from Italian and German adaptations of the ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words). Bayesian and frequentist analyses yielded evidence for the absence of within- and cross-languages effects of grammatical gender and sex- and age-dependent interactions. These results suggest that grammatical gender does not affect judgments of affective features of semantic representation in Italian and German speakers, since an overt coding of word grammar is not required. Although further research is recommended to refine the impact of the grammatical gender on properties of semantic representation, these results have implications for any strong view of the linguistic relativity hypothesis.     

Memory requirements and local ambiguities of parsing strategies

We present a method for calculating lower bounds on the space required and local ambiguities entailed by parsing strategies. A fast, compact natural language parser must implement a strategy with low space requirements and few local ambiguities. It is also widely assumed in the psycholinguistics literature that extremely limited short-term space is available to the human parser, and that sentences containing center-embedded constructions are incomprehensible because processing them requires more space than is available. However, we show that the parsing strategies most psycholinguists assume require less space for processing center-embedded constructions than for processing other perfectly comprehensible constructions. We present alternative strategies for which center-embedded constructions do require more space than other constructions.     

Head position and parsing ambiguity

A strongly principle-based model of parsing seeks to employ principles of the competence grammar directly in language processing. Within grammatical theory, the Projection Principle holds that each level of syntactic representation is a uniform projection of the lexical properties of heads. With respect to parsing this suggests that a phrasal node cannot be projected until the occurrence of its head and thus constitutes a strong empirical hypothesis concerning the fundamental nature of human language processing. This paper contrasts some cross-linguistic predictions made by a specific Grammarderived parsing model against those of a well-known top-down model whose functional motivation is decidedly nonlinguistic. This latter Minimal Attachment model is found to predict significant difficulty with respect to the processing of languages such as Japanese, which display rather different surface properties than English. This problem is not encountered in a model which recognizes the crucial role of heads in licensing argument structure with respect to Processing as well as Grammar. Cross-linguistic parsing differences are attributed to the linear and structural positions of licensing heads which constitute the primary locus of the cross-linguistic variation which is therefore ultimately to be ascribed directly to the Projection Principle.     

Contrasting Grammatical and Lexical Determiners

This paper investigates the difference between the production of grammatical determiners and lexical determiners in the production of adjective-noun phrases (NPs) in Danish. Models of sentence processing (Garrett in Psychology of learning and motivation, Academic press, New York, pp 133–177, 1975; Bock in J Mem Lang 26(2):119–137, 1987) suggest that the phonological encoding stage of grammatical items can only be specified once lexical items have been phonologically encoded. In their usage-based linguistic theory of the grammar-lexicon distinction, Boye and Harder (Lang 88(1):1–44, 2012) propose that this later encoding of grammatical elements is motivated by two specific features of grammatical elements. The first feature, dependence, is that grammatical items (morphemes, words, constructions) cannot be produced in isolation, but are always dependent on a lexical host item. This feature entails a more complex processing which might lead to longer reaction times when comparing the production of NPs with a grammatical determiner to a lexical one. Additionally, a more complex processing might lead to a lower accuracy rate for the grammatical condition relative to the lexical one. The second feature, low prominence, is that grammatical items code background information and therefore cannot convey the main point of a linguistic message. Less focus on grammatical elements might lead to a lower accuracy rate for the production of grammatical elements relative to lexical ones. Those predictions were tested in a task comparing the production of Danish grammatical determiners (indefinite articles) with the production of lexical ones (numerals, which are homonymous with the articles except for a stress difference) in similar contexts. Group-based analyses were performed in order to take inter-individual differences into account. The results show that the two features as proposed by Boye and Harder (2012) are only revealed for the fastest speakers group but not the slower ones.     

Givenness, complexity, and the Danish dative alternation

In this study, we investigated the interaction between givenness and complexity on the choice of syntactic structure, via two experiments using speeded acceptability judgments. Experiment 1 showed that for the Danish dative alternation, given–new orders are only easier to process for double-object or NP constructions, whereas PP constructions are unaffected. This replicates previous findings for the English dative alternation. Experiment 2 revealed that when a long NP precedes a short NP—a suboptimal complexity relation—the effect of givenness is neutralized, whereas givenness remains influential when the complexity relation between the NPs in the sentence is optimal. This is consistent with the view that in online parsing, the actual syntactic structure-building process is primary, whereas any higher-order computations such as discourse linking are secondary. The relative complexity of the NPs in the double-object construction directly affects the structure-building process, whereas the decoding of the discourse structure is a later and less crucial phenomenon, resulting in neutralization of the givenness effect in cases in which the complexity relation is suboptimal.     

When Does Gender Constrain Parsing? Evidence from ERPs

We review the implications of recent ERP evidence for when and how grammatical gender agreement constrains sentence parsing. In some theories of parsing, gender is assumed to immediately and categorically block gender-incongruent phrase structure alternatives from being pursued. In other theories, the parser initially ignores gender altogether. The ERP evidence we discuss suggests an intermediate position, in which grammatical gender does not immediately block gender-incongruent phrase structures from being considered, but is used to dispose of them shortly thereafter.     

Grammatical gender in German: a case for linguistic relativity?

The "principle of linguistic relativity" holds that, by way of grammatical categorization, language affects the conceptual representations of its speakers. Formal gender systems are a case in point, albeit a particularly controversial one: Previous studies obtained broadly diverging data, thus giving rise to conflicting conclusions. To a large extent, this incoherence is related to task differences and methodological problems. Here, a priming design is presented that avoids previous problems, as it prevents participants from employing gender information in a strategic manner. Four experiments with German native speakers show priming effects of the prime's grammatical gender on animate and nonanimate targets, an effect for the prime's biological gender on animate targets, but no effect for the prime's biological gender on nonanimate targets, and thus speak against an effect of language on thought for German gender.     

Speaking two languages with different number naming systems: What implications for magnitude judgments in bilinguals at different stages of language acquisition?

Differences between languages in terms of number naming systems may lead to performance differences in number processing. The current study focused on differences concerning the order of decades and units in two-digit number words (i.e., unit-decade order in German but decade-unit order in French) and how they affect number magnitude judgments. Participants performed basic numerical tasks, namely two-digit number magnitude judgments, and we used the compatibility effect (Nuerk et al. in Cognition 82(1):B25–B33, 2001) as a hallmark of language influence on numbers. In the first part we aimed to understand the influence of language on compatibility effects in adults coming from German or French monolingual and German–French bilingual groups (Experiment 1). The second part examined how this language influence develops at different stages of language acquisition in individuals with increasing bilingual proficiency (Experiment 2). Language systematically influenced magnitude judgments such that: (a) The spoken language(s) modulated magnitude judgments presented as Arabic digits, and (b) bilinguals’ progressive language mastery impacted magnitude judgments presented as number words. Taken together, the current results suggest that the order of decades and units in verbal numbers may qualitatively influence magnitude judgments in bilinguals and monolinguals, providing new insights into how number processing can be influenced by language(s).     

Storage and integration in the processing of filler-gap dependencies: an ERP study of topicalization and wh-movement in German

We recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during the processing of unambiguous German sentences containing different types of filler-gap dependency. Both topicalization constructions and wh-questions were found to elicit a left-anterior negativity (LAN) prior to the processing of the subcategorizing verb, relative to a gap-free control condition. At the subcategorizing verb, sentences containing a wh-dependency produced a parietal positivity (P600) relative to topicalization structures. These results support the claim that separable parsing processes are involved in the processing of syntactic dependencies, with working memory based processes being reflected in an LAN, and the relative difficulty of integrating the filler with its subcategorizer reflected in a P600. Integration cost but not memory cost was found to be influenced by the type of filler-gap dependency involved.     

The semantics of grammatical gender: A cross-cultural study

Although most present-day scholars claim that grammatical gender has no meaning correlates, anecdotal evidence dating back to the Greeks suggests that grammatical gender carries connotative meanings of femininity and masculinity. In the present study native German speakers (tested in Germany) and native Spanish speakers (tested in Mexico) judged 54 high-frequency translation equivalents on semantic differential scales chosen to reflect dimensions of evaluation, potency, and activity. Half the words were of feminine gender in German but of masculine gender in Spanish (Type I words), and half were of masculine gender in German and of feminine gender in Spanish (Type II words). As predicted, German speakers judged Type II words higher in potency than Type I words, whereas Spanish speakers judged Type I words higher in potency than Type II words. The conclusion was that grammatical gender does affect meaning.     

The Failure to Use Gender Information in Parsing: A Comment on van Berkum, Brown, and Hagoort (1999)

We critically review the empirical evidence published by van Berkum, Brown, and Hagoort (1999a, b) against syntax-first models of sentence parsing. According to van Berkum et al., discourse factors and word gender information are used instantaneously to guide the parser. First, we note that the density of the experimental trials (relative to fillers) and the slow presentation rate of the van Berkum et al. design seem likely to have elicited the use of tactics involving rapid reanalysis of the material. Second, we present new data from a questionnaire study showing that the grammatical gender information of a relative pronoun in Dutch is often completely ignored, even during the wrap-up phase at the end of the sentence.     

Calculation,culture, and the repeated operand effect

A basic phenomenon of cognitive arithmetic is that problems composed of a repeated operand, so-called "ties" (e.g. 6+6, 7 x 7), typically are solved more quickly and accurately than comparable non-tie problems (e.g. 6+5, 7 x 8). In Experiment 1, we present evidence that the tie effect is due to more efficient memory for ties than for non-ties, which participants reported solving more often using calculation strategies. The memory/strategy hypothesis accounts for differences in the tie effect as a function of culture (Asian Chinese vs. non-Asian Canadian university students), operation (addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division), and problem size (numerically small vs. large problems). Nonetheless, Blankenberger (Cognition 82 (2001) B15) eliminated the tie response time (RT) advantage by presenting problems in mixed formats (e.g. 4 x four), which suggests that the tie effect with homogenous formats (4 x 4 or four x four) is due to encoding. In Experiment 2, using simple multiplication problems, we replicated elimination of the tie effect with mixed formats, but also demonstrated an interference effect for mixed-format ties that slowed RTs and increased errors relative to non-tie problems. Additionally, practicing non-tie problems in both orders (e.g. 3 x 4 and 4 x 3) each time ties were tested once (cf. Cognition 82 (2001) B15) reduced the tie effect. The format-mismatch effect on ties, combined with a reduced tie advantage because of extra practice of non-ties, eliminated the tie effect. Rather than an encoding advantage, the results indicate that memory access for ties was better than for non-ties.