Canonical Word Order Research Articles

Dynamic brain connectivity attuned to the complexity of relative clause sentences revealed by a single-trial analysis

To explore the issue of how the human brain processes sentences with different levels of complexity, we sought to compare the neural substrates underlying the processing of Chinese subject-extracted relative clause (SRC) and object-extracted relative clause (ORC) sentences in a trial-by-trial fashion. Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the involvement of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left superior temporal gyrus (LSTG) is critical for the processing of relative clause (RC) sentences. In this study, we employed independent component analysis (ICA) to decompose brain activity into a set of independent components. Then, the independent component maps were spatially normalized using a surface-based approach in order to further spatially correlate and match the equivalent components from individual participants. The selected equivalent components indicated that the LIFG and the LSTG were consistently engaged in sentence processing among the participants. Subsequently, we observed alterations in the functional coupling between the LIFG and the LSTG in response to SRCs and ORCs using a Granger causality analysis. Specifically, comprehending Chinese ORCs with a canonical word order only involved a unidirectional connection from the LIFG to the LSTG for the integration of lexical-syntactic information. On the other hand, comprehending Chinese SRCs required bi-directional connectivity between the LIFG and the LSTG to fulfill increased integration demands in reconstructing the argument hierarchy due to a non-canonical word order. Furthermore, through a single-trial analysis, the strength of the connectivity from the LIFG to the LSTG was found to be significantly correlated with the complexity of the SRC sentences as quantified by eye-tracking measures. These findings indicated that the effective connectivity from the LIFG to the LSTG played an important role in the comprehension of complex sentences and that enhanced strength of this connectivity might reflect increased integration demands and restructuring attempts during sentence processing. Taken together, the results of the present study reveal that interregional interaction in the brain network for sentence processing can be dynamically engaged in response to different levels of complexity and also shed some light on the interpretation of neuroimaging and behavioral evidence when accounting for the nature of sentence complexity during reading.

Syntax and processing in Seediq: a behavioral study

Syntactic properties such as word orders are a major factor determining the difficulty of a sentence. In SO-type languages where the subject (S) precedes the object (O) in canonical word order, there is clear evidence that the SO word order is preferred over the OS word order. We investigate to what extent this SO bias is maintained even in typologically diverse languages like Truku, an Austronesian language, in which the Verb-Object-Subject (VOS) word order is canonical and a syntactically basic structure, and SVO is the derived word order and a syntactically more complex structure. It is important to investigate word order preferences in Truku because such inquiries allow us to determine to what extent these widely observed processing preferences are grounded in properties of the linguistic system and/or somewhat more general human cognitive properties. The syntactic complexity account predicts that, in Truku, the derived SVO word order should be more costly, while the saliency account predicts that the word orders in which an agent precedes a theme is preferred. Our auditory comprehension experiment showed that the OS word order was preferred by native speakers of Truku. This indicates that the often-observed SO preference is not a universal feature of language. Furthermore, the lack of a clear indication of the agent-before-theme preference suggests a correlation between the voice property of a given language and the importance of the saliency factor.

Brain connectivity in the left frontotemporal network dynamically modulated by processing difficulty: Evidence from Chinese relative clauses.

Although the connection between the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left superior temporal gyrus (LSTG) has been found to be essential for the comprehension of relative clause (RC) sentences, it remains unclear how the LIFG and the LSTG interact with each other, especially during the processing of Chinese RC sentences with different processing difficulty. This study thus conducted a 2 × 2 (modifying position × extraction position) factorial analyses to examine how these two factors influences regional brain activation. The results showed that, regardless of the modifying position, greater activation in the LIFG was consistently elicited in Chinese subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) with non-canonical word order than object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) with canonical word order, implying that the LIFG subserving the ordering process primarily contributes to the processing of information with increased integration demands due to the non-canonical sequence. Moreover, the directional connection between the LIFG and the LSTG appeared to be modulated by different modifying positions. When the RC was at the subject-modifying position, the effective connectivity from the LIFG to the LSTG was dominantly activated for sentence comprehension; whereas when the RC was at the object-modifying position thus being more difficult, it might be the feedback mechanism from the LSTG back to the LIFG that took place in sentence processing. These findings reveal that brain activation in between the LIFG and the LSTG may be dynamically modulated by different processing difficulty and suggest the relative specialization but extensive collaboration involved in the LIFG and the LSTG for sentence comprehension.

The left periphery in neglect dyslexia

ABSTRACT Background Neglect dyslexia (ND) is a reading disorder that impairs the left visual field. The Left periphery (LP) is the highest layer of the extended syntactic structure, and it represents the interface between communicative intention and syntactic realization. Topic and Focus are the two central projections of the LP. Sentences involving either Topic or Focus display marked structures in which a constituent, extracted from its original position, is fronted. Aims The aim of the present study is to test whether sentences containing Topic or Focus display a facilitation effect with respect to canonical word order (SVO) sentences in the reading performance of individuals with neglect dyslexia. Methods & Procedures Nine participants with neglect dyslexia were tested in a reading task. Participants were asked to read aloud a list of 103 sentences, classified into Condition 1 (experimental condition) and Condition 2 (control condition) based on their syntactic structure. Both substitutions and omissions of letters, syllables, and words were considered as errors. Data were analysed using generalized linear mixed model (GLMM)with accuracy as the dependent variable, condition as independent variable and subjects and sentences as random intercepts. Outcomes & Results Results showed that sentences containing Topic and Focus were read with significantly less impairment than control sentences (t (100) = −2.06, p = 0.041). Conclusions Our findings are consistent with previous studies on the effects of syntax in ND as they demonstrate that sentence structure has a crucial influence on driving attention in individuals with ND.

Case marking and word order in Greek heritage children.

This study examined the linguistic and individual-level factors that render case marking a vulnerable domain in English-dominant Greek heritage children. We also investigated whether heritage language (HL) children can use case-marking cues to interpret (non-)canonical sentences in Greek similarly to their monolingual peers. A group of six- to twelve-year-old Greek heritage children in New York City and a control group of age-matched monolingual children living in Greece participated in a production and a picture verification task targeting case marking and (non-)canonical word order in Greek. HL children produced syncretic inflectional errors, also found in preschool monolingual children. In the comprehension task, HL children showed variable performance on the non-canonical OVS but ceiling performance on the SVO conditions, which suggests influence from English. Linguistic factors such as case transparency affected comprehension, whereas child-level factors such as proficiency and degree of (early) use of Greek influenced performance on both modalities.

Santa María Ixcatlán y la lengua xjuani

Xula or Ixcatlán is located in the Cañada region
 and it is a municipality of Teotitlán de Flores Magón, in the
 state of Oaxaca. There is not much information about this
 village's origin; however, there is evidence that shows that
 it was settled before the arrival of the Spaniards. Ixcatlán
 is an indigenous village with a population of approximately
 573 people. In this village there are 6 elders that continue
 to use the Ixcatec language, but the rest of the townsfolk
 speak only Spanish; for them the Ixcatec language is no
 longer a language of communication. The decrease of
 Ixcatec language speakers has three main causes: the
 decline of inhabitants during the sixteenth century, the
 migration away from the village in different decades of
 the twentieth century, and imposition of the Spanish
 language by the Mexican rural schools since the 40's. The
 Ixcatec language is one of four languages of the Popolocan
 linguistic family of the Otomanguean stock. Ixcatec share
 certain linguistic characteristics with other Otomanguean
 languages, for example, it has tones, nasalized vowels
 and glottalized vowels, and the canonical word order is:
 verb + subject + object. Due to its endangered status and
 its linguistic characteristics, this language holds a great
 interest to government agencies, academic institutions
 and independent linguistic activists, which, aiming to
 strengthen the Ixcatec language, have implemented
 various documentation, teaching and linguistic awareness
 projects.

Letters to Language

Letters to Language Cilene Rodrigues Language accepts letters from readers that briefly and succinctly respond to or comment upon either material published previously in the journal or issues deemed of importance to the field. The editor reserves the right to edit letters as needed. Brief replies from relevant parties are included as warranted. Response to a book review April 5, 2020 To the Editor: In their review of the book Recursion across domains (ed. by Luiz Amaral, Marcus Maia, Andrew Nevins, and Tom Roeper, Cambridge University Press, 2018), Daniel Everett and Edward Gibson (E&G; Language 95(4).777–90, 2019) concluded that the chapters devoted to Pirahã do not meet ‘high scientific standards’ (p. 780). Their review is unusual in criticizing not only the argumentation and claims of these chapters, but also the very competence of the authors to conduct their research, as well as the competence of a local assistant thanked by the authors, mistakenly described as the ‘primary Pirahã consultant’ (p. 781). I coauthored two of the chapters criticized in their review, Chs. 6 and 15. For space reasons, I focus on their criticism of the first of those papers. There is much to be said about the rest of their review, but I believe that the failings of their response to Ch. 6 satisfactorily exemplify issues that pervade the review. I am writing this communication not because their review was negative, but because it contains misrepresentations and falsehoods, which should be corrected. I first briefly summarize the evidence and argument that Ch. 6 presents in favor of structural embedding. I then consider E&G’s critique, ending with a brief response to their comments concerning our competence, the competence of our sources, and their criticism of our data. ________ Word order and control: Our argument for syntactic embedding was straightforward, based on fieldwork data that showed obligatory control, a phenomenon found internal to complex sentences in the world’s languages, and not found across discourse. The canonical word order of Pirahã is SOV (Everett 1983:201, ex. 3; A lingua Pirahã e a teoria da sintaxe, Universidade Estadual de Campinas dissertation). However, in constructions that one might take to show a clause embedded as a complement of a higher verb, Pirahã generally places that clause after the verb, yielding a structure that one might analyze as SVO (Everett 2005:629, ex. 24; ‘Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã: Another look at the design features of human language’, Current Anthropology 46(4).621–46). Everett 2005, however, took this as evidence that such structures do not actually involve clausal complementation, but paratactic conjunction, the putative clausal object actually constituting an independent sentence. We presented the following arguments against E’s (2005) claim: a. The Pirahã counterpart of sentences like ‘I want to study’ shows the phenomenon of obligatory control (OC). When the subject of ‘study’ is unpronounced, it must be understood as controlled by the subject of ‘want’. Our consultant permitted no other interpretation. b. In such structures, both SOV and SVO are acceptable (Everett 2005:117, ex. 13, 14). The first of these orders is clearly not amenable to reanalysis as paratactic conjunction. c. Main-clause material may follow the complement clause in control structures with SVO order. A temporal adverb following a complement clause in an SVO OC structure can only modify the main clause (Everett 2005: 119, ex. 17) (possibly because the embedded clause is too small to support ad verbial modification). If the putative complement clause were actually an independent sentence, we would not expect that it could be followed by an adverb modifying an earlier independent sentence. d. SOV order is not restricted to environments of control. The desiderative verb sogabagai may also take a full clausal complement with an overt subject. In this case, SOV order is restricted; only the embedded predicate can precede the desiderative verb. The subject of the embedded clause follows the higher verb, resulting in a subject-predicate split. Once again, we would not expect an independent sentence to be followed by the subject of the sentence that preceded it. ________ E&G’s critique: According to E&G, Rodrigues et al. ‘missed some crucial...

Obligatory inversion in scientific texts

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a corpus-based analysis of obligatory full inverted and subject-operator inverted constructions in scientific texts. These are inversions obligatorily triggered by certain fixed preverbal constituents – as in ‘Here are some examples’ or ‘Nor did they know the entitlement criteria’ – since they are not replaceable in context by a comparable clause with SVX canonical word order because this is grammatically unavailable or conveys a different meaning. On the basis of a statistical analysis, it is argued that the distribution of these constructions in scientific texts is related to the degree of the addressor’s involvement in the text in question. It is further argued that the different types of obligatory inversions retrieved from the corpus may be seen to serve as discourse markers which convey addressor’s involvement in scientific writing. It will be shown that some obligatory inversions allow the presence of the addressor to change the addressee’s focus of interest or attention in the text, while other inversions allow the addressor to stress a particular constituent in the inverted clause, thus emphasising a comparative, restrictive or negative meaning.

Word Order Variations in Shabaki

Word order types constitute the most well- established and frequently cited generalization in language typology. Basic or canonical word order tends to fall into two main types: SOV (about 48% of world languages) or SVO (about 41%). SOV is assumed to have been the predominant and unmarked word order in most of the oldest attested Indo-European languages, as well as in Iranian languages. This paper investigates the basic word order in Shabaki, a modern northwest language of the Indo-Iranian family spoken by the Shabaki minority in Iraq. This study also measures the word order variation and provides a typological description of this language. An examination of Shabaki data reveals that it follows SOV, OSV, SVO, VSO, OVS, and VOS word order patterns in mono-transitive sentences. The most frequent (predominant and unmarked) word order in declarative sentences in Shabaki is SOV where the initial position is occupied by a nominative noun phrase, but constituents can appear at any position, creating grammatical sentences with different discursive distributions. In ditransitive sentences, (S) DO V IO is proven to be three fold higher in number than (S) IO V DO. (S) DO IO V and (S) IO DO V were also found in data. Keywords: Agreement, basic word order, case, clitics, Indo-Iranian languages, language typology, Shabaki Introduction Grammatical relations in human languages, such as those between a noun phrase and the verb, are primarily expressed by means of three different morphosyntactic strategies: word order, case marking, and agreement (Croft 1990: 101). All languages, rather than relying on just one of these mechanisms, use some combination of the three. In this paper, it is the intention to explore what elements of these three strategies Shabaki language employs to indicate the relationship that a noun bears to the verb in a clause. It also tries to explore the order of objects in ditransitive sentences.

L2 Processing of English Direct Object and Oblique Relative Clauses

This study examines how second language learners of English process English direct object (DO) and oblique (OBL) RCs. In L1 and L2 processing research, subject and DO RCs are frequently used to test the comprehension and production of complex structures. However, comparing the processing of these two types of RCs is potentially problematic because they differ in terms of typical head noun animacy and canonical word order. In order to eliminate potential effects from these factors, this study instead utilizes DO RCs and OBL RCs to accurately test for an effect of the length between the filler and the gap in sentences involving filler-gap dependencies. The participants were 39 intermediate- and advanced-level L2 English learners. The study’s analysis of their comprehension accuracy and reading times resulted in two main findings: (1) the learners comprehended DO RCs more accurately than OBL RCs and (2) they spent much more time reading OBL RCs than DO RCs. These results indicate that, for L2 English learners, DO RCs are less complex and easier to process than OBL RCs. The results support a filler-gap-dependency distance effect; that is, greater length between the filler and the gap increases L2 processing difficulty.

The neuro-anatomical bases for the advantage of left periphery in neglect dyslexia

The neuro-anatomical bases for the advantage of left periphery in neglect dyslexia

Factores que influyen en la comprensión de las cláusulas subordinadas de relativo en español: estudio exploratorio

Most of the comprehension of sentential meaning depends on how easily speakers assign thematic roles (such as Agent or Patient) to noun phrases. This process is particularly useful for comprehending relative clauses given that when processing them speakers need to discern if they are dealing with a Subject (S) relative clause (El joven1 [que1Sujeto vino] trajo una valija, ‘The young man1 [that1Subject came] brought the suitcase’) or an Object (O) relative clause (El joven1 [que1Objetoyosaludé] trajo una valija, ‘[The young man1 [that1ObjectI greeted] brought the suitcase]’). Previous research has shown that the former type is easier to process than the latter type and it has been suggested that factors such as word order and the presence or absence of Case marking could impact the processing of O relative clauses. The present exploratory study is the first one to exploit the morphosyntactic flexibility of Spanish in order to examine four structures that combine different word orders with the presence or absence of Case marking. Following the presentation of a frequency analysis of these structures in a written corpus of Spanish, this paper presents two studies: one about spontaneous comprehension (thematic role assignment) without time limit and another one in which responses were timed. Results suggest that both canonical word order and Case marking positively impact comprehension.&nbsp

Acquiring a first language in adolescence: the case of basic word order in American Sign Language.

Previous studies suggest that age of acquisition affects the outcomes of learning, especially at the morphosyntactic level. Unknown is how syntactic development is affected by increased cognitive maturity and delayed language onset. The current paper studied the early syntactic development of adolescent first language learners by examining word order patterns in American Sign Language (ASL). ASL uses a basic Subject-Verb-Object order, but also employs multiple word order variations. Child learners produce variable word order at the initial stage of acquisition, but later primarily produce canonical word order. We asked whether adolescent first language learners acquire ASL word order in a fashion parallel to child learners. We analyzed word order preference in spontaneous language samples from four adolescent L1 learners collected longitudinally from 12 months to six years of ASL exposure. Our results suggest that adolescent L1 learners go through stages similar to child native learners, although this process also appears to be prolonged.

Processing of Active Sentences with Different Accusative Markers /ta/ Accusatives vs. /va/ Accusatives in Spoken Sinhala language

This paper examines whether active sentences with different accusative markers illustrate identical circumstances when processing canonical ordered sentences and scramble ordered sentences. Specifically, this study focuses on Double Object Markers (DOM) phenomenon in Sinhala language with relation to sentence processing. Sinhala language is said to possess DOM for active sentences consisting of transitive verbs (/ta/ and /va/). Previous studies in experimental linguistics in Sinhala language have examined the canonical word order in active sentences consisting of transitive verbs with /ta/ accusatives, and have provided evidence that the canonical word order is decided based on the information provided by grammatical functions (Subject-Object-Verb). Since /va/ and /ta/ accusatives accompany different verbs, it is important to examine the sentences with /va/ accusatives in order to ascertain the fact that the canonical word order is constructed according to the grammatical information (i.e., Subject-Object-Verb) in all active sentences consisting of transitive verbs in the spoken form of the Sinhala language. Thus, this study conducted two experiments (EX#1 with /va/ accusatives, and EX#2 with /ta/ accusatives) using the nature of scrambling effects to seek whether SOV word order remains canonical and grammatical functions still provide necessary information to determine the canonical word order. A series of one-way ANOVAs was conducted on reaction times and error rates of the responses. The results show that the canonical order remains Subject-Object-Verb for active sentences consisting of transitive verbs with /va/ accusatives which in turn suggest that the information of grammatical function is still applicable regardless of different accusative types in active sentences of the Sinhala language.Key words - /ta/ Accusatives, /va/ Accusatives, Scrambling effects, Canonical order, Scrambled order

Case Ellipsis: Acquisition of Variability by Young Heritage Speakers of Korean

ABSTRACT Korean employs case ellipsis (CE), in which nouns are permitted to appear without case markers in certain contexts, particularly in informal settings. Heritage speakers (HS) are typically exposed to informal registers and thus exposed to fewer uses of overt case markers in the input. Given the limited exposure, it is predicted that young HS of Korean will not have control over CE. Three Korean heritage children were observed longitudinally over two years. Findings revealed that all three of the children use CE from as early as 3;09. The results also show no decrease of the use of CE over two years and that CE appears more frequently with canonical word order and deixis terms, patterning similarly to other Korean speakers. Despite the fact that the children predominantly hear Korean spoken in informal registers and the data were collected during informal, low register contexts, the children exhibit competence of CE.

Processing of non-canonical word orders in (in)felicitous contexts: evidence from event-related brain potentials

ABSTRACT In many languages with flexible word orders, canonical word order has a processing advantage over non-canonical word orders. This observation suggests that it is more costly for the parser to represent syntactically complex sentences. Alternatively, this phenomenon may relate to pragmatic factors because most previous studies have presented non-canonical word orders without felicitous context, which violates participants’ expectations regarding the information structure. The present study conducted an event-related potential experiment to examine the locus of the processing difficulty associated with non-canonical word orders in Japanese by manipulating word order (SOV vs. OSV) and the givenness of arguments. The results showed that OSV elicited a sustained left anterior negativity from O to S and a P600 effect at S compared to that of SOV in the infelicitous but not in the felicitous context. This result suggests that the processing difficulty of non-canonical word orders in Japanese is alleviated by discourse factors.

Negative Transfer Effects on L2 Word Order Processing.

Does first language (L1) word order affect the processing of non-canonical but grammatical syntactic structures in second language (L2) comprehension? In the present study, we test whether L1-Spanish speakers of L2-Basque process subject–verb–object (SVO) and object–verb–subject (OVS) non-canonical word order sentences of Basque in the same way as Basque native speakers. Crucially, while OVS orders are non-canonical in both Spanish and Basque, SVO is non-canonical in Basque but is the canonical word order in Spanish. Our electrophysiological results showed that the characteristics of L1 affect the processing of the L2 even at highly proficient and early-acquired bilingual populations. Specifically, in the non-native group, we observed a left anterior negativity-like component when comparing S and O at sentence initial position and a P600 when comparing those elements at sentence final position. Those results are similar of those reported by Casado et al. (2005) for native speakers of Spanish indicating that L2-Basque speakers rely in their L1-Spanish when processing SVO–OVS word order sentences. Our results favored the competition model (MacWhinney, 1997).

Sentence production in Parkinson’s disease

ABSTRACTWhile growing evidence reports changes in language use in non-demented individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD), the presence and nature of the deficits remain largely unclear. Researchers have proposed that dysfunctioning fronto-basal ganglia circuit results in impaired grammatical processes, predicting qualitatively similar language impairments between individuals with PD and agrammatic Broca’s aphasia, whereas others suggest that PD is not associated with language-specific grammatical impairment. In addition, there is a paucity of research examining syntactic production in PD at the sentence-level. This study examined sentence production of individuals with PD, healthy older adults, and individuals with agrammatic Broca’s aphasia. In Experiment 1, using a Cinderella story-telling task, proportion of grammatical sentences, number of embedded clauses and production of verb arguments in sentences were examined. In Experiment 2, a structured sentence elicitation task was used in which syntactic complexity of sentences (canonical vs. non-canonical word order) was systematically manipulated while minimizing demands for non-syntactic processing. Only the participants with agrammatic Broca’s aphasia showed significantly impaired syntactic production in both experiments. Participants with PD did not show impaired syntactic production in either task, despite impairments in lexical retrieval, repetition of words and sentences, and speech production. These findings suggest that impaired syntactic processing may not be a core deficit underlying the changes in language use in non-demented PD. Changes in language use in PD are qualitatively different from language deficits in aphasia.

Syntactic comprehension in Parkinson’s disease: Type of embedding and canonicity

Syntactic comprehension in Parkinson’s disease: Type of embedding and canonicity

The Neurobiology of Agrammatic Sentence Comprehension: A Lesion Study.

Broca's area has long been implicated in sentence comprehension. Damage to this region is thought to be the central source of "agrammatic comprehension" in which performance is substantially worse (and near chance) on sentences with noncanonical word orders compared with canonical word order sentences (in English). This claim is supported by functional neuroimaging studies demonstrating greater activation in Broca's area for noncanonical versus canonical sentences. However, functional neuroimaging studies also have frequently implicated the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in sentence processing more broadly, and recent lesion-symptom mapping studies have implicated the ATL and mid temporal regions in agrammatic comprehension. This study investigates these seemingly conflicting findings in 66 left-hemisphere patients with chronic focal cerebral damage. Patients completed two sentence comprehension measures, sentence-picture matching and plausibility judgments. Patients with damage including Broca's area (but excluding the temporal lobe; n = 11) on average did not exhibit the expected agrammatic comprehension pattern-for example, their performance was >80% on noncanonical sentences in the sentence-picture matching task. Patients with ATL damage ( n = 18) also did not exhibit an agrammatic comprehension pattern. Across our entire patient sample, the lesions of patients with agrammatic comprehension patterns in either task had maximal overlap in posterior superior temporal and inferior parietal regions. Using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping, we find that lower performances on canonical and noncanonical sentences in each task are both associated with damage to a large left superior temporal-inferior parietal network including portions of the ATL, but not Broca's area. Notably, however, response bias in plausibility judgments was significantly associated with damage to inferior frontal cortex, including gray and white matter in Broca's area, suggesting that the contribution of Broca's area to sentence comprehension may be related to task-related cognitive demands.