psy 369: psycholinguistics
DESCRIPTION
PSY 369: Psycholinguistics. Some basic linguistic theory part2. Levels of analysis. Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics. Morphology. Language differences Isolating languages : no endings, just word order (e.g., Chinese & Vietnamese) - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
PSY 369: Psycholinguistics
Some basic linguistic theorypart2
Levels of analysis
Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics
phonetics phonology morphology syntax lexicon discourse
medium of
transmission
meaning
(semantics)
grammar
language
structure usepragmatics
Morphology Language differences
Isolating languages: no endings, just word order (e.g., Chinese & Vietnamese)
Inflecting: lots of inflections (e.g., Latin & Greek) In Classic Greek every verb has 350 forms
Agglutinating languages (e.g., Turkish, Finnish, Eskimo)
Eskimo: angyaghllangyugtuq = he wants to acquire a big boatAngya- ‘boat’; -ghlla- ‘augmentative meaning’; -ng- ‘acquire’; -
yug- ‘expresses desire’; -tuq- third person singular
Psychological reality of Morphology
Speech errors Stranding errors: The free morpheme typically moves,
but the bound morpheme stays in the same location
they are Turking talkish (talking Turkish) you have to square it facely (face it squarely)
Morpheme substitutions a timeful remark (timely) Where's the fire distinguisher? (Where's the fire
extinguisher?)
Morpheme shift I haven't satten down and writ__ it (I haven't sat down and written
it) what that add__ ups to (adds up to)
Psychological reality of Morphology
Wug test (Gleason, 1958)
QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Here is a wug.
QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressorare needed to see this picture.
Now there are two of them.
There are two _______.
Levels of analysis
Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics
phonetics phonology morphology syntax lexicon discourse
medium of
transmission
meaning
(semantics)
grammar
language
structure usepragmatics
Syntax: the ordering of the words A dog bites a man.
Syntax: the ordering of the words A dog bites a man. A man bites a dog.
• Same words, but different word order leads to a radically different interpretation
Syntax: the ordering of the words A dog bites a man. A man bites a dog. A dog was bitten by a
man.
• Not just the linear ordering • It is the underlying set of syntactic rules
man
S
VP
doga
NP
bites
Va
NP
man
S
VP
doga
NP
bites
V
a
NP
Object position
Subject position
Syntax: the ordering of the words• The underlying structural position, rather than surface linear position matters.
Syntactic Ambiguity The same linear order (surface structure) may
be ambiguous with respect to the underlying structure
Good shot How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know
– Groucho Marx shot an elephant in his pajamas
Syntactic Ambiguity
VP
V PPNP
P NP
shot an elephant in my pajamas
VP
V
PP
P NP
shot
NP
an elephant in my pajamas
NP
Generative Grammar The pieces:
– Grammatical features of words• Dog: Noun
• Bite: Verb
– Phrase structure rules - these tell us how to build legal structures
• S --> NP VP(a sentence consists of a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase)
• VP --> V (NP)
• NP --> (A) (ADJ) N
Generative Grammar
Recursion: you can embed structures within structures
NP --> (A) (ADJ) N (PP) PP --> Prep NP
So we NP’s can be embedded within PP’s which in turn may be embedded within NP’s.
The dog with the bone of the dinosaur from the cave with the paintings of the animals with fur bit the man.
The result is an infinite number of syntactic structures from a finite set of pieces
Chomsky’s Linguistics Chomsky proposed that grammars could be
evaluated at three levels: Observational adequacy
Must be able to predict acceptable and unacceptable sentences Descriptive adequacy
Explain how sentences with similar meanings are related (e.g., active and passive sentences)
Explanatory adequacy Must be able to explain how languages are acquired and the
similarities and differences across languages (language universals)
Transformational grammar Chomsky (1957, 1965)
Two stages phrase structures for a sentence Build Deep Structure
One constituent at a time Build from phrase structure rules
Convert to Surface Structure Built from transformations that operate on the deep structure Adding, deleting, moving Operate on entire strings of constituents
Transformational grammar
LexiconLexical
insertion rules
Transformational component
Semantic component
Surface structures
Deep structures
Semantic structures
Phrase structure rules
Transformational grammar 2 deep structures, 1 surface structure:
Groucho Marx shot an elephant in pajamas
1 deep structure, 2 surface structures: Active/passive sentences:
The man bit the dog. The dog was bitten by the man.
Transformational grammar
in the garage
S
NP VP
NPVP PP
Deep structure Surface structure
The car
was put (trace)
NP VP
NPVP PP
S
in the garagethe carwas put
Movement transformation
Psychological reality of syntax Derivational theory of complexity
The more transformations, the more complex The boy was bitten by the wolf The boy was bitten. (involves deletion) No evidence for more processing of the second sentence
Evidence for (trace) Some recent evidence or reactivation of moved constituent at
the trace position
Evidence for syntax Syntactic priming
semantics Word level
Network models Polysemy
Sentence level Propositions
Pragmatics