Grammatical Cues Research Articles

Hemispheric Sensitivity to Grammatical Cues: Evidence for Bilateral Processing of Number Agreement in Noun Phrases

The present experiment employed a grammatical priming task to explore the possible contributions of the left and right cerebral hemispheres to the processing of grammatical agreement. Stimuli were three-word noun phrases, with the prime centered above the fixation point and the target presented laterally to one visual field after a 600-ms stimulus onset asynchrony. Number agreement between primes and targets was varied such that the article of the prime could be consistent (i.e., each narrow shoe or all narrow shoes), inconsistent (i.e., all narrow shoe or each narrow shoes) or neutral (i.e., the narrow shoe(s)) with respect to the inflection of the target. Half of the subjects provided lexical decision responses and the other half pronunciation. The bilateral priming effect, obtained only in lexical decision, suggests that both the left and the right hemispheres are sensitive to certain grammatical cues. In addition to the task difference in priming, the inclusion of a neutral condition and of pseudo-inflected nonwords allowed these effects to be attributed to postlexical mechanisms.

The Effects of Case Marking Information on Korean Sentence Processing

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether a parser's on-line processes are affected by manipulation of case markings in Korean sentence processing, and to evaluate the usefulness of a Ranked Flagged Serial Parser (RFSP) model in predicting Korean ambiguity resolution processes. By using a self-paced word-by-word reading task, in Experiment 1, relative and coordinate sentences of the form NP-ka (nominative), NP-lul (accusative), and Verb were compared to those sentences of the form NP-nun (topic marker), NP-lul, and Verb. In Experiment 2, relative sentences that have NP-ka, NP-ka, and Verb sequence were compared to those sentences of NP-nun, NP-ka, and Verb sequence. In addition, reversed relative clause sentences were compared after changing case markings of the last NP. The topic marker -nun changed overall patterns of word-by-word reading times of the sentences in both experiments. The results clearly showed that local grammatical cues, such as case markings, are used in generating syntactic hypotheses. We also found that the RFSP model successfully predicted local processing loads and reparsing difficulties in Korean sentence comprehension. Suggestions for further studies were made.

Essays on language function and language type dedicated to T. Givón Ed. by Joan Bybee, John Haiman, and Sandra Thompson (review)

188 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 75, NUMBER 1 (1999) lau (174-86) studies the so-called impersonal form in the Gurage dialects of Caha and Ennemor. Takamitsu Muraoka (206-15) comments on three points of morphology of the Aramaic of the Ahiqar Proverbs: the masculine plural emphatic morpheme ; the infinitive of derived conjugations; and the object suffix -yh for 3rd person masculine plural. Some of these features may be placed in the wider context of internal Aramaic dialectology and the position of Aramaic within Semitic (see John Huehnergard . 1995. Palmyra and the Arameans. Aram 7.261-82). Jan Retsö (268-82) deals with the relation between state (status) and plural markers in Semitic morphology and addresses some essential issues in Semitic studies: the allegedly conservative morphological system of the Î Arabiyya; the origins of the external plural markers; the tanwîn; etc. In Retsö's interesting article, as complete as it is, one misses a mention of Vermondo Brugnatelli's treatment of the feminine plurals in Old Aramaic (1991. The 'feminine ' plurals in Old Aramaic: New light from Tell Fekherye. Proceedings of the fifth international Hamito-Semitic congress, ed. by Hans G. Mukarovsky , 196-84. Vienna: Institute für Afrikanistik und Ägyptologie). Furthermore, an analysis of similar morphemes in other Afroasiatic branches can shed light on the evolution of their functions. For instance, Chadic languages (especially Hausa) have a formative t marking feminine, singulative, and diminutive; an agreement pattern in the deictic system which exhibits ? formasculine, tfor feminine, and? for plural; noun plurals marked with both a suffix -n and an infix -a-; etc.; (see Paul Newman. 1987. Hausa and Chadic languages. The world's major languages, ed. by Bernard Comrie, 705-23. Oxford: Oxford University Press). The distribution of the different systems of external and internal plurality represents a productive diagnostic for Semitic and Afroasiatic subclassification, as Robert R. Ratcliffe has shown in his recent article on broken plurals (1998. Defining morphological isoglosses: The 'broken' plural and Semitic subclassification. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 57.81-123). [Gonzalo Rubio, Johns Hopkins University.] Essays on language function and language type dedicated to T. Givón. Ed. by Joan Bybee, John Haiman, and Sandra Thompson. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1997. Pp. vi, 478. This festschrift comprises twenty articles on various topics in functional/typological linguistics. The book opens with a picture of Givón playing a fiddle, followed by encouraging letters and personal anecdotes about the man of honor by twelve ofhis friends and colleagues and a rather impressive bibliography of Givón's publications in linguistics from 1966-1995. As the title may suggest, the volume is a rather eclectic selection of works which offers something ofinterest to everyone with an interest intypological/ functional issues. Joan Bybee's article, 'Semantic aspects of morphological typology', starts off the volume, relating morphological typology to grammaticization patterns. Bybee puts out a new hypothesis on why Chinese did not evolve to develop obligatory grammatical categories noting that Chinese 'speakers avoid redundancy, and hearers maintain an open set ofinferencing options; in particular they do not elevate grammatical cues over those provided by the lexical semantics and the context' (35). Colette Grinevald offers an interesting linguistic autobiography about growing up trilingual in her article, 'Living in three languages'. Of particular interest to ergativity enthusiasts will be Spike Gildea's article, 'Introducing ergative word order via reanalysis', where he illustrates word order configurations in Cariban and traces the absolutive-verb bond as a historical derivative of a possessor-possessed bond. Matthew S. Dryer's article, 'Are grammatical relations universal', explains that similarities among languages should be attributed to functional and cognitive principles, not formal constructs . R. M. W. Dixon and Alexandra Aikhenvald distinguish four basic types of syntactic derivations relating to predicate arguments in their article, ? typology of argument-determined constructions'. Marianne Mithun exemplifies lexicalization and grammaticization patterns in Native American languages in 'Lexical affixes and grammatical typology .' In 'On zero anaphora', Charles Li presents data from Late Archaic Chinese, where he shows that referents are not expressed twice unless there is a syntactic or discourse reason to do so. Ofparticular interest to Austronesianists and voice enthusiasts would be Thomas Payne and Thomas Laskowske's article 'Voice in Seko Padang...

Semantic Inference for Anaphora Resolution: Toward a Framework in Machine Translation

Anaphora is a discourse-level linguistic phenomenon. There is consensus that anaphora resolution should rely on prior sentences within the context of the discourse. We propose to cast anaphora resolution as a semantic inference process in which a combination of multiple strategies, each exploiting different aspects of linguistic knowledge, is employed to provide a coherent resolution of anaphora. A framework which encompasses several salient linguistic parameters such as grammatical role, proximity, repetition, sentence recency and semantic cues is demonstrated. This work also shows how an anaphora-resolution algorithm can be embedded within a framework which captures all the above salient parameters, as well as remedies some of the inadequacies found in any monolithic resolution system. A language-neutral semantic representation characterized by semantic cues is presented in order to capture the distilled information after resolution. The effectiveness of the language-neutral representation, both for machine translation and anaphora resolution, is demonstrated through a set of simulations and evaluations.

Words are invitations to learn about categories

Evidence from language acquisition suggests that words are powerful mechanisms in the acquisition of substance concepts. Infants initially approach language with the general expectation that words refer to real kinds, regardless of grammatical cues to the contrary.

A preliminary account of the effect of otitis media on 15-month-olds' categorization and some implications for early language learning.

In the present study, 24 infants 14 to 16 months old (M = 15.3 months) with a history of otitis media (OM) and tube placement were tested for categorical responding within a visual familiarization-discrimination paradigm (cf. Roberts & Jacob, 1991; Roberts, 1995a). Sixteen infants were, on average, 4.6 months post-tubes. At the time of testing, hearing was reported to be normal. During both the familiarization and testing phases, reiterant speech ulterances (e.g., "ti ti the sasasa," "bo bo the sasasa," "gu gu the sasasa," "sasasa") were randomly presented contingent on infants' looking at line drawings of selected animals. The inclusion of the article the in these utterances provides an important grammatical cue signaling an upcoming noun label. Using these same procedures, utterances, and animal stimuli, normal-hearing 15-month-olds without a reported history of OM had categorized successfully in two previous experiments. In contrast, the OM infants did not respond categorically under these conditions. This suggests that even mild hearing loss may adversely affect categorical responding under specific input conditions and that this effect may persist after normal hearing is restored. A plausible account is that fluctuating hearing loss may cause the low-phonetic-substance article to vacillate above and below some attentional threshold. The resulting inconsistency in the article's availability would disrupt the co-occurrence relation between the article and cues already connected to joint attentional/referential interactions and categorical treatment of objects (cf. Roberts, 1995a). Such a disruption has implications for the acquisition of words and other aspects of language.

Factor Structure of the Gibb Experimental Test of Testwiseness

This study investigated the factor structure of scores on the seven subscales of the Gibb (1964) Experimental Test of Testwiseness. The Gibb instrument measures a subject's ability to use seven types of secondary cues to correctly answer multiple-choice test questions. The study investigated whether the seven types of cues proposed by Gibb (1964) represented independent dimensions or could be reduced to a smaller set of interpretable factors. A principal components analysis yielded two factors with eigenvalues exceeding 1.00. The factors were rotated to final solution using the varimax method. Scales loading above .40 on factor 1 included Alliterative Associations, More Precise Alternatives, Longer Correct Alternatives, and Grammatical cues. These subscales were interpreted as more overt cues to the correct response. Scales with loadings above .40 on factor 2 included Grossly Unrelated Alternatives, Inclusionary Language, and Give Aways in other items. These subscales were interpreted as more subtle cues to the correct response. Further research is necessary to replicate the factors and to substantiate these tentative interpretations.

Cue validity in Hebrew sentence comprehension.

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the degree to which cue validity, as estimated from textual analyses, predicts the actual strength of grammatical cues as they are used by speakers of Hebrew. An experiment was conducted to determine the differential strengths of the linguistic cues employed by Hebrew speakers when assigning the role of patient in sentences. Monolingual Hebrew-speaking subjects 4, 5, 7, and 9 years old, as well as adults, were tested using a sentence-picture verification task. Six cues were included in the study: word order, the accusative object marker, the reflexive noun phrase and three verbal derivations. By presenting subjects with sentences which set these cues in competition with one another, a measure of the strength of each cue was obtained. The results of a regression analysis revealed strong positive correlations between estimated cue validities and actual cue strengths for all but the youngest age groups. These results were interpreted as suggesting that cue validity is highly predictive of actual cue strengths. In addition, the strengths of the six cues varied as a function of the subject's age. Two additional factors were hypothesized to account for the performance of the older subjects: increased sensitivity to the reliability of cues and discourse-based constraints.

Can Relevant Grammatical Cues Result in Invalid Test Items?

This series of studies examined the effect of adhering to the universally endorsed item-writing practice of making the correct answer of a multiple-choice item grammatically consistent with the stem. Formats were designed to investigate whether the practice of providing relevant grammatical cues in itself created a sensitivity for item performance. ACT Assessment experimental social studies items were constructed to investigate grammatical compliance in two particular situations: plural-singular and vowel-consonant agreement. In no instance were grammatically inappropriate situations created. Results suggest some subject sensitivity to these cues. Rephrasing into neutral, but still precise and grammatically correct, language may eliminate this sensitivity.

Reading Cue Utilization by Low-Achieving College Freshmen

Recent research has questioned the role of graphic analysis (decoding) in reading. In this study the utilization of graphic cues by low-achieving college freshmen is described in its relationship to syntactic and semantic factors. Cue utilization was evidenced by varying probabilities of correcting word substitutes across levels of these three dimensions. The results indicate that use of graphics is associated with syntactic and semantic characteristics of the substitutes. There was also evidence that use of graphic and grammatical cues varies with difficulty of the passage. These results confirm multiple use of linguistic cues as described by Goodman.

The Ability of Deaf Children to Use Syntactic Cues in Immediate Recall of Speechread Material

This study investigated the ability of profoundly deaf children, CA 6–0 through 13–11, to use grammatical cues in the oral reproduction of speechread material. Shifting patterns of significant results on the indicator variables of number of omissions, additions, substitutions, and word order reversals; correct reproduction; and length of production proved in part the hypothesis that grammatical structure influences the ability to reproduce speechread material.

The role of grammaticality in the imitation of word strings by children and adults

The ability of Ss to imitate sentences differs significantly from their ability to imitate nonsentential word strings of equal length. This study asks about the importance of suprasegmental features and the approximation to sentencehood of the stimulus word-string for the sentential and nonsentential imitation strategies of children and adults. Citation form word strings of various types were presented to adult and child Ss, and errors in the imitations were noted and analyzed. For adults, the absence of suprasegmentals had no effect on the Ss' ability to differentially handle sentential and nonsentential sequences. For very young children (3 yr), all string types are treated similarly. Within a very short time, however, the child acquires the adult's ability to use grammatical cues for sentencehood.

THE COMPREHENSION OF TENSE BY YOUNG CHILDREN

It was found that the present, past, and future tenses were comprehended by children aged 3 years when an unfamiliar referent (a performing toy) and a nonsense verb were used. The past and future tenses were comprehended when presented paired with each other, but not when paired with the present tense. These results were attributed to the factor of attention. A second experiment showed that the future tense paired with the present was not comprehended till the age of 6, and only at the age of 5 when additional grammatical and referential cues were given.