Janet F. McLean

Priming prepositional-phrase attachment during comprehension.

Strong evidence suggests that prior syntactic context affects language production (e.g., J. K. Bock, 1986). The authors report 4 experiments that used an expression-picture matching task to investigate whether it also affects ambiguity resolution in comprehension. All experiments examined the interpretation of prepositional phrases that were ambiguous between high and low attachment. After reading a prime expression with a high-attached interpretation, participants tended to interpret an ambiguous prepositional phrase in a target expression as highly attached if it contained the same verb as the prime (Experiment 1), but not if it contained a different verb (Experiment 2). They also tended to adopt the high-attached interpretation after producing a prime with the high-attached interpretation that included the same verb (Experiment 3). Finally, they were faster to adopt a high-attached interpretation after reading an expression containing the same verb that was disambiguated to the high-attached versus the low-attached interpretation (Experiment 4).

Syntactic priming in spoken production: Linguistic and temporal interference

Current evidence about the persistence of syntactic priming effects (Bock, 1986) is equivocal: Using spoken picture description, Bock and Griffin (2000) found that it persisted over as many as 10 trials; using written sentence completion, Branigan, Pickering, and Cleland (1999) found that it dissipated if even a single sentence intervened between prime and target. This paper asks what causes it to be long lasting. On one account, the rapid decay evidenced by Branigan et al. occurs because the task emphasizes conceptual planning; on another account, it is due to the written nature of their task. If conceptual planning is the cause, this might relate to planning the prime sentence or planning an intervening sentence. Hence we conducted an experiment with spoken sentence completion, contrasting no delay, an intervening sentence, and a pure temporal delay. The results indicated that strong and similar priming occurred in all three cases, therefore lending support to the claim that spoken priming is long lasting.

Evidence for (Shared) Abstract Structure Underlying Children's Short and Full Passives.

In a syntactic priming paradigm, three- and four-year-old children and adults described transitive events after hearing thematically and lexically unrelated active and short passive prime descriptions. Both groups were more likely to produce full passive descriptions (the king is being scratched by the tiger) following short passive primes (the girls are being shocked) than active primes (the sheep is shocking the girl). These results suggest that by four, children have (shared) abstract syntactic representations for both short and full passives, contrary to previous proposals (e.g., Horgan, 1978).

The role of local and global syntactic structure in language production: Evidence from syntactic priming

Experimental research has provided evidence for an autonomous stage of syntactic processing during language production. We report eight syntactic priming experiments that investigated whether this stage uses the same procedures to produce phrases with a particular structure when they appear in different syntactic contexts. Experiments 1–3 demonstrated syntactic priming for verb phrase structure in main clauses, irrespective of whether the global structure of the prime and target sentences varied. Experiments 4–6 demonstrated syntactic priming for verb phrase structure in subordinate clauses, both when prime and target were both subordinate clauses, and when one was a subordinate clause and the other was a main clause. Experiments 7 and 8 directly compared syntactic priming between main and subordinate clauses with priming between main clauses and priming between subordinate clauses. We interpret these results as evidence that the processor uses the same procedures to build syntactic structure in different syntactic contexts.

Is children's acquisition of the passive a staged process? Evidence from six- and nine-year-olds' production of passives

We report a syntactic priming experiment that examined whether childrens acquisition of the passive is a staged process, with acquisition of constituent structure preceding acquisition of thematic role mappings. Six-year-olds and nine-year-olds described transitive actions after hearing active and passive prime descriptions involving the same or different thematic roles. Both groups showed a strong tendency to reuse in their own description the syntactic structure they had just heard, including well-formed passives after passive primes, irrespective of whether thematic roles were repeated between prime and target. However, following passive primes, six-year-olds but not nine-year-olds also produced reversed passives, with well-formed constituent structure but incorrect thematic role mappings. These results suggest that by six, children have mastered the constituent structure of the passive; however, they have not yet mastered the non-canonical thematic role mapping. By nine, children have mastered both the syntactic and thematic dimensions of this structure.

The comprehension of anomalous sentences: evidence from structural priming.

We report three experiments investigating how people process anomalous sentences, in particular those in which the anomaly is associated with the verb. We contrast two accounts for the processing of such anomalous sentences: a syntactic account, in which the representations constructed for anomalous sentences are similar in nature to the ones constructed for well-formed sentences; and a semantic account, in which the representations constructed for anomalous sentences are erroneous, or altogether missing, and interpretation is achieved on the basis of semantic representations instead. To distinguish between these accounts, we used structural priming. First, we ruled out the possibility that anomaly per se influences the magnitude of the priming effect: Prime sentences with morphologically incorrect verbs produced similarly enhanced priming (lexical boost) to sentences with the same correct verbs (Exp. 1). Second, we found that prime sentences with a novel verb (Exp. 2) or a semantically and syntactically incongruent verb (Exp. 3) produced a priming effect, which was the same as that produced by well-formed sentences. In accord with the syntactic account, we conclude that the syntactic representations of anomalous sentences are similar to those constructed for well-formed sentences. Our results furthermore suggest that lexically-independent syntactic information is robust enough to produce well-formed syntactic representations during processing without requiring aid from lexically-based syntactic information.

Shared Information Structure: Evidence from Cross-Linguistic Priming.

This study asked whether bilinguals construct a language-independent level of information structure for the sentences that they produce. It reports an experiment in which a Polish–English bilingual and a confederate of the experimenter took turns to describe pictures to each other and to find those pictures in an array. The confederate produced a Polish active, passive, or conjoined noun phrase, or an active sentence with object–verb–subject order (OVS sentence). The participant responded in English, and tended to produce a passive sentence more often after a passive or an OVS sentence than after a conjoined noun phrase or active sentence. Passives and OVS sentences are syntactically unrelated but share information structure, in that both assign emphasis to the patient. We therefore argued that bilinguals construct a language-independent level of information structure during speech.

Do you what I say? People reconstruct the syntax of anomalous utterances

ABSTRACT We frequently experience and successfully process anomalous utterances. Here we examine whether people do this by “correcting” syntactic anomalies to yield well-formed representations. In two structural priming experiments, participants’ syntactic choices in picture description were influenced as strongly by previously comprehended anomalous (missing-verb) prime sentences as by well-formed prime sentences. Our results suggest that comprehenders can reconstruct the constituent structure of anomalous utterances – even when such utterances lack a major structural component such as the verb. These results also imply that structural alignment in dialogue is unaffected if one interlocutor produces anomalous utterances.

Mathematical difficulties as decoupling of expectation and developmental trajectories

Recent years have seen an increase in research articles and reviews exploring mathematical difficulties (MD). Many of these articles have set out to explain the etiology of the problems, the possibility of different subtypes, and potential brain regions that underlie many of the observable behaviors. These articles are very valuable in a research field, which many have noted, falls behind that of reading and language disabilities. Here will provide a perspective on the current understanding of MD from a different angle, by outlining the school curriculum of England and the US and connecting these to the skills needed at different stages of mathematical understanding. We will extend this to explore the cognitive skills which most likely underpin these different stages and whose impairment may thus lead to mathematics difficulties at all stages of mathematics development. To conclude we will briefly explore interventions that are currently available, indicating whether these can be used to aid the different children at different stages of their mathematical development and what their current limitations may be. The principal aim of this review is to establish an explicit connection between the academic discourse, with its research base and concepts, and the developmental trajectory of abstract mathematical skills that is expected (and somewhat dictated) in formal education. This will possibly help to highlight and make sense of the gap between the complexity of the MD range in real life and the state of its academic science.

Lexical preference and global structure contributions to syntactic choice in sentence production

When people decide how to express a message, they have to choose among different sentence structures. These choices are affected by lexical factors (such as whether a verb is more commonly associated with one structure than another) and by structural factors, such as the overall preference for one structure over another. After reviewing the psycholinguistic literature, we discuss a range of grammars that make use of lexical information in syntactic structure building. We then discuss recent psycholinguistic evidence that suggests that choice of structure depends on lexical information and on the global syntactic environment.