Chapter 2 - Remarks on the Architecture of Language Processing Systems

Abstract

This chapter reviews the remarks on the architecture of language processing systems. The chapter highlights some of the recurrent conflicts among experimental outcomes that rely on behavioral indices of parsing. These controversies can be understood in terms of two additional data classes: a recent series of eye-movement studies that supports strong interactive claims on re parsing and an equally recent series of event related potential (ERP) studies that supports modular systems. The chapter analyzes the argument that the various conflicts between empirical findings require a resolution in terms of a filtering model, and sketches the outline of such a proposal. The essential feature of the resolution relies on using the language production system as the source of the apparent conceptual and discourse level constraints on parsing. Any general evaluation of the architecture of language processing systems must address not only the character of language comprehension, but also that of language generation. Language production models must account for the real-time integration of utterance form—in the service of the specific force—of the meaning that a speaker wishes to convey on a given occasion of utterance.