Can intonational phrase structure be primed (like syntactic structure)?

Tooley, Kristen M.; Watson, Duáne G.

doi:10.1037/a0034900

Cited by 16 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The syntactic level is separate from a single sound-based level of representation that encodes phonology, syllabic structure, and metrical information (which we refer to under the blanket term 'phonological information'). We assume one sound-based level as there is insufficient evidence to discriminate different levels (see Sevald, Dell, and Cole 1995;Tooley, Konopka, and Watson 2014).…”

Section: An Outline Theory Of Syntax and Its Interfaces Based On Strumentioning

confidence: 99%

An experimental approach to linguistic representation

Branigan¹,

Pickering²

2016

Behav Brain Sci

170

172

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Within the cognitive sciences, most researchers assume that it is the job of linguists to investigate how language is represented, and that they do so largely by building theories based on explicit judgments about patterns of acceptability - whereas it is the task of psychologists to determine how language is processed, and that in doing so, they do not typically question the linguists' representational assumptions. We challenge this division of labor by arguing that structural priming provides an implicit method of investigating linguistic representations that should end the current reliance on acceptability judgments. Moreover, structural priming has now reached sufficient methodological maturity to provide substantial evidence about such representations. We argue that evidence from speakers' tendency to repeat their own and others' structural choices supports a linguistic architecture involving a single shallow level of syntax connected to a semantic level containing information about quantification, thematic relations, and information structure, as well as to a phonological level. Many of the linguistic distinctions often used to support complex (or multilevel) syntactic structure are instead captured by semantics; however, the syntactic level includes some specification of "missing" elements that are not realized at the phonological level. We also show that structural priming provides evidence about the consistency of representations across languages and about language development. In sum, we propose that structural priming provides a new basis for understanding the nature of language.

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Section: An Outline Theory Of Syntax and Its Interfaces Based On Strumentioning

confidence: 99%

An experimental approach to linguistic representation

Branigan¹,

Pickering²

2016

Behav Brain Sci

170

172

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“…Intriguingly, the ordering of direct object and verb-particle-which also shows somewhat mysterious priming effects-has rhythmic correlates as well (Dehé, 2002). The possibility of rhythmic priming in language has not been widely studied, and the evidence that does exist is mixed: While no evidence has been found for priming of pauses within sentences (Tooley, Konopka, & Watson, 2014, and one study found no evidence of lexical stress priming (Bock & Loebell, 1990, Exp. 3), other work that used tone sequences found rhythmic priming for word lists (Cason & Schön, 2012) and for sentences with matching rhythmic structure (Cason, Astésano, & Schön, 2015). Clearly, more work is needed to determine whether (explicit or implicit) rhythmic structure, or any of the other factors besides syntax in Table 4, is responsible for the priming in each case.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

How abstract is syntax? Evidence from structural priming

et al. 2019

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In 1990, Bock and Loebell found that passives (e.g., The 747 was radioed by the airport's control tower) can be primed by intransitive locatives (e.g., The 747 was landing by the airport's control tower). This finding is often taken as strong evidence that structural priming occurs on the basis of a syntactic phrase structure that abstracts across lexical content, including prepositions, and is uninfluenced by the semantic roles of the arguments. However, all of the intransitive locative primes in Bock and Loebell contained the preposition by (by-locatives), just like the passive targets. Therefore, the locative-to-passive priming may have been due to the adjunct headed by by, rather than being a result of purely abstract syntax. The present experiment investigates this possibility. We find that passives and intransitive by-locatives are equivalent primes, but intransitive locatives with other prepositions (e.g., The 747 has landed near the airport control tower) do not prime passives. We conclude that a shared abstract, content-less tree structure is not sufficient for passive priming to occur. We then review the prior results that have been offered in favor of abstract tree priming, and note the range of evidence can be considerably narrowed-and possibly eliminated-once effects of animacy, semantic event structure, shared morphology, information structure, and rhythm are taken into account.

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“…The syntactic level is separate from a single sound-based level of representation that encodes phonology, syllabic structure, and metrical information (to which we refer using the blanket term "phonological information"). We assume one sound-based level, because there is insufficient evidence to discriminate different levels (see Sevald et al 1995;Tooley et al 2014a).…”

Section: An Outline Theory Of Syntax and Its Interfaces Based On Strumentioning

confidence: 99%

Priming is swell, but it's far from simple

Ziegler

Snedeker

Wittenberg³

2017

Behav Brain Sci

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Clearly, structural priming is a valuable tool for probing linguistic representation. But we don't think that the existing results provide strong support for Branigan & Pickering's (B&P's) model, largely because the priming effects are more confusing and diverse than their theory would suggest. Fortunately, there are a number of other experimental tools available, and linguists are increasingly making use of them.

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Can intonational phrase structure be primed (like syntactic structure)?

Cited by 16 publications

References 41 publications

An experimental approach to linguistic representation

An experimental approach to linguistic representation

How abstract is syntax? Evidence from structural priming

Priming is swell, but it's far from simple

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