Constraints on sentence processing:

Quantitative approaches to the study of language

 

This course will survey evidence for the use of several different information sources and how they interact in the course of on-line sentence processing.  We will also discuss how working memory constrains sentence comprehension.  Throughout the course we will emphasize quantitative methods for investigating language, including reading and listening paradigms, neural imaging, and computational modeling.  We will also discuss how to design experimental materials to evaluate hypotheses from all areas of language, controlling for information sources not relevant to the hypothesis in question, using either unambiguous materials or temporarily ambiguous materials.  Specific topics include: the interaction of lexical information, syntactic information and world knowledge in on-line processing; working memory and sentence comprehension; reference and context in sentence comprehension; prosody in sentence comprehension; discourse coherence in sentence comprehension; recursion in syntax; quantitative syntax and the nature of syntactic information, including a case study of island effects.