Beyond linear order: The role of argument structure in speaking

Momma, Shota; Ferreira, Victor S.

doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2019.101228

Cited by 28 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…The difference we detect in speakers' commitment to sentence plans is consistent with behavioral findings on the importance of syntactic dependencies for the time course of planning: Like in the Hindi aligned condition, speakers of English and Japanese (where agent noun phrases are always aligned) plan agent noun phrases without an initial commitment to a verb and a sentence structure [68][69][70]. This contrasts with the earlier commitment that is required by sentences where the first noun phrase opens a strong dependency with the remaining sentence.…”

Section: Plos Biologysupporting

confidence: 87%

“…This contrasts with the earlier commitment that is required by sentences where the first noun phrase opens a strong dependency with the remaining sentence. In Hindi, we found this effect with marked, nonaligned noun phrases, and it is paralleled by the early commitment speakers need to make when planning patient noun phrases in English and Japanese which structurally depend on the verb [68][69][70]. More generally, the contrast we find between structures in Hindi expands previous findings that different dependencies afford different patterns in sentence planning [25,27,45,46,[71][72][73][74].…”

Section: Plos Biologysupporting

confidence: 84%

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Neural signatures of syntactic variation in speech planning

et al. 2021

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Planning to speak is a challenge for the brain, and the challenge varies between and within languages. Yet, little is known about how neural processes react to these variable challenges beyond the planning of individual words. Here, we examine how fundamental differences in syntax shape the time course of sentence planning. Most languages treat alike (i.e., align with each other) the 2 uses of a word like “gardener” in “the gardener crouched” and in “the gardener planted trees.” A minority keeps these formally distinct by adding special marking in 1 case, and some languages display both aligned and nonaligned expressions. Exploiting such a contrast in Hindi, we used electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking to suggest that this difference is associated with distinct patterns of neural processing and gaze behavior during early planning stages, preceding phonological word form preparation. Planning sentences with aligned expressions induces larger synchronization in the theta frequency band, suggesting higher working memory engagement, and more visual attention to agents than planning nonaligned sentences, suggesting delayed commitment to the relational details of the event. Furthermore, plain, unmarked expressions are associated with larger desynchronization in the alpha band than expressions with special markers, suggesting more engagement in information processing to keep overlapping structures distinct during planning. Our findings contrast with the observation that the form of aligned expressions is simpler, and they suggest that the global preference for alignment is driven not by its neurophysiological effect on sentence planning but by other sources, possibly by aspects of production flexibility and fluency or by sentence comprehension. This challenges current theories on how production and comprehension may affect the evolution and distribution of syntactic variants in the world’s languages.

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Section: Plos Biologysupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Plos Biologysupporting

confidence: 84%

Neural signatures of syntactic variation in speech planning

et al. 2021

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“…One such inconsistency was that the dependency distance prediction for factors such as HDMI and case-marking in the case of direct object is not borne out. It is possible that compared to other arguments, the relationship between a direct object and verb is distinct (Momma and Ferreira, 2019). If this is true, then we should be able to replicate the DO pattern found in the current study for other SOV languages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

What Determines the Order of Verbal Dependents in Hindi? Effects of Efficiency in Comprehension and Production

Sharma¹,

Futrell²,

Husain³

2020

Proceedings of the Workshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics

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Word order flexibility is one of the distinctive features of SOV languages. In this work we investigate whether the order and relative distance of preverbal dependents in Hindi, an SOV language, is affected by factors motivated by efficiency considerations during language comprehension and production. We investigate the influence of Head-Dependent Mutual Information (HDMI), similarity-based interference, accessibility and case-marking. Results show that preverbal dependents remain close to the verbal head when the HDMI between the verb and its dependent is high. This demonstrates the influence of locality constraints on dependency distance and word order in an SOV language. Additionally, dependency distance were found to be longer when the dependent was animate, when it was case-marked and when it was semantically similar to other preverbal dependents. Together the results highlight the cross-linguistic generalizability of these factors and provide evidence for a functionally motivated account of word order in SOV languages such as Hindi.

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“…There is compelling evidence that encoding structural relations relies on semantic representations (Bunger et al, 2013;Do & Kaiser, 2019;Konopka & Kuchinsky, 2015;Momma & Ferreira, 2019;Momma et al, 2015). A question that recently received attention in the literature is to what extent conceptual encoding is non-relational -identifying concepts and then building structure -or relationalprocessing relationships between entities before the entities themselves (Konopka & Bock, 2009;Konopka & Brown-Schmidt, 2014;Kuchinsky, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For verb-argument structures non-linear planning depends on subcategorisation of the verb (Bunger et al, 2013;Konopka & Kuchinsky, 2015;Momma & Ferreira, 2019) but the equivalent mechanisms for noun phrases is unknown. We propose that for noun phrases coordinating element (and, or) (Heim, 1982), prepositions and the possessive marker ('s) play an equivalent role (Barker, 1995(Barker, , 2012Kratzer, 2002).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semantic relations underlie non-linear planning in complex noun phrases

ROESER¹,

Torrance²,

Baguley³

2020

Preprint

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When producing a noun phrase whether or not pre-planning extends beyond theinitial noun varies with the phrase’s syntactic structure. However it is not clear on whatbasis – conceptual or syntactic – the production system determines that pre-planning isnecessary. In two experiments (Ns= 32, 64) participants produced noun phrases inresponse to picture arrays. Surface form was held constant but scope of the initialdeterminer was manipulated by varying the contrastive functions of the first and thesecond noun (e.g., The man with the painting [but not the girl with the painting] vs. Theman with the painting [but not the man with the ball]). Evidence from eye movement data revealed a stronger tendency for early planning in the extended-scope condition. This is evidence that pre-planning requirements of structurally complex noun phrase are determined prior to the processing of syntax and lexis.

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Beyond linear order: The role of argument structure in speaking

Cited by 28 publications

References 61 publications

Neural signatures of syntactic variation in speech planning

Neural signatures of syntactic variation in speech planning

What Determines the Order of Verbal Dependents in Hindi? Effects of Efficiency in Comprehension and Production

Semantic relations underlie non-linear planning in complex noun phrases

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