linguistic illusions : where you see them, where you don’t colin phillips department of...

Linguistic Illusions : where you see them, where you dont Colin Phillips Department of Linguistics Neuroscience & Cognitive Science Program University of Maryland languagescience.umd.edu if you can barely read these words, please move forward!

clinical educational engineering & computation neuroscience philosophy computer science electrical engineering information science literacy hearing/speech sciences second language acquisition neuropsychologypsychology cognitive neuroscience anthropology cognitive science & linguistics Language Science

Ambiguity Todays focus Successes & failures that were unaware of The Cotswolds, England

Matt Wagers Ellen Lau Brian Dillon Nina Kazanina Masaya Yoshida Ming Xiang Clare Stroud Sachiko Aoshima Akira Omaki Pedro Alcocer Wing Yee Chow Jon Sprouse Alexis Wellwood Leticia Pablos Amy Weinberg Jeff Lidz Roumi Pancheva Valentine Hacquard Moti Lieberman Shevaun Lewis Dave Kush

Robust in noisy environments

John-ga John.nom Mary-ni Mary.dat ringo-o apple.acc tabeta ate inu-o dog.acc ageta gave John gave Mary the dog that ate the apple. John-ga John.nom Mary-ni Mary.dat Tom-ga Tom.nom mise-de store-at miruku-o milk.acc katta-to bought.decl itta told John told Mary that Tom bought the milk at the store. Rapid Irrespective of Word Order Japanese verb relative clause

the dog was big and scary At each word 1. visual/acoustic processing 2. phoneme recognition 3. word recognition 4. syntactic analysis 5. semantic interpretation Fast 3-5 words/second 200-400 msec/word

Pylkknen et al. 2002 Halgren et al. 2002 Electrical/magnetic brain activity Word access: ~250-400 msec 260 ms280 ms310 ms340 ms Computational Bottleneck Updating interpretation at each word requires much more time than is available.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Linguistic Illusions

auditory [pa] + visual [ka] = perceptual [ta] McGurk 1976

And in the absence of large-scale policy differences between the two candidates, the personal nature of their exchanges are more likely to result in lasting damage. [4/9/08] Republicans privately acknowledge this, arguing that in the hands of a more popular politician, the ideas that Cheney are putting forward could find fertile ground with the American people. [5/21/09] Agreement the personal nature of their exchanges are the ideas that Cheney are putting forward

More people have been to Russia than I have. Comparatives

Selective Fallibility 1.Success 2.Failure

Obvious not-so-obvious Many features of languages are obvious 1. English verbs precede their objects (ate the pizza) Japanese verbs follow their objects (piza-o tabeta) 2. English distinguishes the vowels in sheep and ship Spanish does not etc. etc. etc. Many are not remotely obvious new discoveries daily Non-obvious properties can be especially revealing about how human minds/brains make language possible.

Long Distance Relations Agreement The children that I saw at the park this morning were building a fire. Pronouns (co-reference) The children that I saw this morning knew that they were late for school. Question formation What were the children that I saw in the park looking for ___? Squid Giant Axon

Pronoun Interpretation In some sentence-types, name-pronoun order is flexible While John was reading the book, he ate an apple. While he was reading the book, John ate an apple. In minimally different sentences, it is not flexible John ate an apple while he was reading the book. *He ate an apple while John was reading the book. Reflects a constraint on interpretation (Principle C) that is: i. Formally straightforward (antecedent cant be in scope of pronoun) ii. Cross-linguistically robust a likely universal of human language iii. Developmentally privileged children know by age 2.5-3 years iv. Obscure, and has limited functional value Can search for pronoun interpretation ignore inappropriate nouns?

While she was taking classes full-time, Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills. While she was taking classes full-time, Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills. While she Jessica Russell Gender Mismatch Effect (Kazanina et al., 2007) Good co-reference

----- -- --- ------- --- ----- ---- --- -- ------ Self Paced Reading

While -- --- ------- --- ----- ---- --- -- ------ Self Paced Reading

----- he --- ------- --- ----- ---- --- -- ------ Self Paced Reading

----- -- was ------- --- ----- ---- --- -- ------ Self Paced Reading

----- -- --- reading --- ----- ---- --- -- ------ Self Paced Reading

----- -- --- ------- the ----- ---- --- -- ------ Self Paced Reading

----- -- --- ------- --- book, ---- --- -- ------ Self Paced Reading

----- -- --- ------- --- ----- John --- -- ------ Self Paced Reading

----- -- --- ------- --- ----- ---- ate -- ------ Self Paced Reading

----- -- --- ------- --- ----- ---- --- an ------ Self Paced Reading

----- -- --- ------- --- ----- ---- --- -- apple. Self Paced Reading

While she was taking classes full-time, Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills. While she was taking classes full-time, Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills. While she Jessica Russell Gender Mismatch Effect (Kazanina et al., 2007) Pronoun interpretation is blind to grammatically inappropriate nouns. (multiple constructions in English, also Russian, even Japanese) Good co-reference She was taking classes full-time while Jessica was working two jobs to pay the bills. She was taking classes full-time while Russell was working two jobs to pay the bills. She while Jessica while Russell Bad co-reference

Few people think that anybody realizes that Englishmen cook wonderful dinners Question Formation

Few people think that anybody realizes that Englishmen cook what

What do few people think that anybody realizes that Englishmen cook Question Formation

What do few people believe anybody who claims that Englishmen cook relative clause A relative clause is an island a wh-word cannot escape from it. (another cross-linguistically robust constraint) Does the constraint impact real-time comprehension of questions?

Howmanystudentsdidtheschoolenlargetheclassroomfor? How many students did the school enlarge the classroom for __?

Question Formation What do few people believe anybody who claims that Englishmen cook relative clause A relative clause is an island a wh-word cannot escape from it. (another cross-linguistically robust constraint) Does the constraint impact real-time comprehension of questions? Yes! Even in Japanese, where relative clauses come at you from behind! Stowe 1986; Traxler & Pickering 1996; Phillips 2006; Wagers & Phillips, 2009; Yoshida, Aoshima, & Phillips 2004

Infallibility Moral so far for the comprehension bottleneck: Language comprehension is remarkably grammatically sensitive Little need to appeal to mechanisms that build rough and ready interpretations to get the job done

Peripheral drift illusion Akiyoshi Kitaoka, Kyoto U

And in the absence of large-scale policy differences between the two candidates, the personal nature of their exchanges are more likely to result in lasting damage. [4/9/08] Republicans privately acknowledge this, arguing that in the hands of a more popular politician, the ideas that Cheney are putting forward could find fertile ground with the American people. [5/21/09] Agreement the personal nature of their exchanges are the ideas that Cheney are putting forward

The key to the cells unsurprisingly were rusty (Bock & Miller 1991; Pearlmutter et al. 1999; Deevy et al. 1998; Staub 2009; Wagers, Lau, & Phillips 2009; Eberhard et al. 2005) Agreement Illusions The key to the cell unsurprisingly were rusty Its not simply proximity concord: The musicians who the reviewer praise so highly The musician who the reviewer praise so highly And it is selective plurals create illusions, singulars dont The keys to the cell unsurprisingly was rusty And it happens to the best of us Not only do we produce agreement errors we generally fail to notice them

The sheer weight of all these facts and figures make them hard for anyone to understand. [10/13/81] Ronald Reagan To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Date: February 1, 2011, 3:38:53AM Subject: ugh "The ill-formedness of center self-embeddings are consequently believed to stem from (me, 10 minutes ago) Matt Wagers UC Santa Cruz

Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) ever anything anybody anywhere yet John has ever been to DC. John hasnt ever been to DC. Nobody can solve the problem yet. Somebody can solve the problem yet. lift a finger in years say a word a damn thing the slightest bit a red cent

Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) NPIs are licensed by negation and negative-like contexts Nobody expects Congress to ever change. Voters expect Congress to ever change. Few people expect Congress to ever change. Voters doubt that Congress will ever change. But the negation cant be just anywhere must be structurally higher than NPI *The people [ rel. cl. who cant stand it] expect Congress to ever change. No bills [that the democratic senators supported] will ever become law. *The bills [that the democratic senators supported] will ever become law. *The bills [that no democratic senators supported] will ever become law. NPI Illusions (German: Drenhaus et al. 2005; English: Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2009)

More people have been to Russia than I have. Comparative Illusion (Montalbetti 1984, Townsend & Bever 2001, Wellwood et al. 2009)

Im not going to solely blame all of mans activities on changes in climate Im not one to attribute every activity of man to climate change 9/30/08 10/02/08 Role Reversal Illusion

Real-time processes are not grammatically infallible but nor are they the product of a rough-and-ready analyzer Possible sources of selective fallibility profile: Hard-coded in parser arbitrary? Predictable based on properties of individual constraints? (i) Time-course (ii) Memory search mechanisms (iii) Interpretive consequences (iv) etc. Selective Fallibility

Explaining Selective Fallibility 1.Directionality 2.Memory Access 3.Semantic Extensions

Recipe for Success Examples of very successful on-line constraint application Pronoun interpretation (Principle C)he i John i Wh-questions (islands)what i verb i Plus various other cases of impressive speed or sensitivity All implicate predictive processes Analyzer can engage in prospective search for specific items Forewarned is forearmed: parser can anticipate relevant details Grammatically inappropriate domains can be excluded in advance of perceptual content; may protect against interference

Recipe for Success Examples of very successful on-line constraint application Pronoun interpretation (Principle C)he i John i Wh-questions (islands)what i verb i Examples of grammatical illusions - retrospective Negative Polarity Itemsthe bills [that no senators ] ever Agreementthe runners that the driver see

Braver, Paxton, Lock, & Barch, PNAS, 2009 Dual Mechanisms of Cognitive Control (Braver et al. 2007) Proactive Control: active maintenance of goal, more robust to interference (less available to older adults) Reactive Control: more transient, more sensitive to interference

Recipe for Success Examples of very successful on-line constraint application Pronoun interpretation (Principle C)he i John i Wh-questions (islands)what i verb i Examples of grammatical illusions - retrospective Negative Polarity Itemsthe bills [that no senators ] ever Agreementthe runners that the driver see How does subject-verb agreement count as a retrospective process?

Agreement Illusion Agreement illusions are even more selective grammatical asymmetry Wagers, Lau, & Phillips, 2009 Illusions of grammaticality *Stacey met the player who the coach like best *Stacey met the players who the coach like best No Illusions of ungrammaticality Stacey met the player who the coach likes best Stacey met the players who the coach likes best speeded acceptability judgments % acceptance the key singular to the cells plural verb singular verb plural

Illusions reflect faulty memory retrieval(well, some of them) Why is memory retrieval susceptible to interference? Is all linguistic memory retrieval like this?

Is there a green square?

Dual Visual Search Mechanisms Feature search is (i) fast, set-size invariant (ii) susceptible to interference, partial matches, and illusory conjunction Conjunction search is slow, serial (Treisman & Gelade 1980 etc.; but cf. McElree & Carrasco, 1999)

thekey tothecellswere S Subj PP VP V thekey tothecellswere S Subj PP VP V Two ways to search structures in memory serial, structure-guided search parallel, cue-guided search +plural +subject 1000 0001 structure-sensitive, avoids interference slow, esp. for longer relations susceptible to interference fast, even for longer relations McElree et al. 2003; Lewis et al. 2006; Wagers, Lau, & Phillips, 2011

Same Memory Different Access Subject-Verb Agreement The diva [that accompanied the harpist on stage] clearly was flawless The diva [that accompanied the harpists on stage] clearly was flawless The diva [that accompanied the harpist on stage] clearly were flawless The diva [that accompanied the harpists on stage] clearly were flawless Subject-Reflexive Agreement The diva [that accompanied the harpist on stage] clearly presented herself The diva [that accompanied the harpists on stage] clearly presented herself The diva [that accompanied the harpist on stage] clearly presented themselves The diva [that accompanied the harpists on stage] clearly presented themselves Dillon, Mishler, & Phillips, 2011 illusion no illusion Both processes require access to same element -- the subject of the same clause.

Testing reasons for different retrieval mechanisms #1: Reflexives interpreted as the agent of the adjacent verb; avoiding direct retrieval Test: Chinese long-distance reflexive ziji can co-refer with subject of higher clause, should block this strategy Finding: Chinese ziji works just like himself Dillon et al. 2010 Alcocer et al. 2010 #2: Perhaps reflexive pronouns like himself are richer memory cues than verbs like were Test: Brazilian Portuguese verbs can be cues for agreement or for pronoun interpretation Finding: same retrieval cues, but agreement vs. pronoun contrast persists

More people have been to Russia than I have. Comparative Illusion (Montalbetti 1984, Townsend & Bever 2001, Wellwood et al. 2011)

Mis-remembering word order: more is determiner & adverb People have been to Russia more than I have. Test: change more to fewer (unambiguous) Fewer people have been to Russia than I have. illusions persist Additional more Its not just me who has been to Russia Test: change second clause to block this interpretation More girls have been to Russia than the boy has. illusions persist Word order clue More people have been to Russia [than I have] More people [than I have] have been to Russia breaking 1 st clause stops illusion Event comparison: consistent effects of repeatable predicates Comparative Illusion: Possible Sources (Wellwood, Pancheva, Hacquard, & Phillips, 2011)

More undergrads call their families during the week than grad students do. More undergrads call their families during the week than I do. More New Yorkers began law school this semester than I did. 3.78 5.286.05 More New Yorkers began law school this semester than rich Canadians did. 5.47 Repeatable Non-repeatable CoherentIncoherent (Wellwood, Pancheva, Hacquard, & Phillips, 2011)

Comparison of individuals treated as comparison of events This is quite common in normal language (Krifka 1990; Barker 1999) The [George Washington] bridge carried 107,912,000 vehicles in 2007. (Wikipedia) More vehicles crossed the bridge in 2007 than in any other year. More people have been to Russia in the past 10 years than in the previous 50. Comparative Illusion

Non-obvious phenomena reveal inner workings of language system Bottleneck for language understanding so much to do, so little time! Brains response: impressive multi-tasking, not a rush-job Selective Fallibility Impressive sensitivity often Temporary blindness to errors sometimes Cause for Misunderstanding? Little impact on real-life understanding BUT: success depends on highly effective time management. Failure of these mechanisms could unleash severe language problems Linguistic Illusions

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linguistic illusions : where you see them, where you don’t colin phillips department of...

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