Overview

"This volume investigates the architecture and mechanisms which underlie the human capacity to process language. It integrates modern syntactic theory, cross-linguistic psychological evidence and modern computational techniques in constructing a model of the human sentence processing mechanism. The monograph follows the rationalist tradition, arguing the central role of modularity and universal grammar in a theory of human linguistic performance. It refines the notion of ""modularity of mind"", and presents a distributed model of syntactic processing which consists of modules aligned with the various informational ""types"" associated with modern linguistic theories. By considering psycholinguistic evidence from a range of languages, a small number of processing principles are motivated and are demonstrated to hold universally. It is also argued that the behaviour of modules, and the strategies operative within them, can be derived from an overarching ""Principle of Incremental Comprehension"". The book is intended for linguists, psycholinguists, computational linguists and others interested in a unified and interdisciplinary study of the human language faculty."

Full Product Details

Author:   Matthew W. Crocker
Publisher:   Springer
Imprint:   Springer
Edition:   1996 ed.
Volume:   20
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   1.210kg
ISBN:  

9780792338024

ISBN 10:   0792338022
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   31 December 1995
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction.- I.1 The Study of Language.- I.2 The Competence-Performance Distinction.- I.3 The Universal Parser.- I.4 A Programme of Research.- I.5 Organisation of Chapters.- II. Perspectives on Sentence Processing.- II.1 Modularity in Language Processing.- II.2 The Nature of the Empirical Evidence.- II.3 Extant Theories of Linguistic Performance.- II.4 Conclusions.- III. Principles, Parameters and Representations.- III.1 Explanation in Universal Grammar.- III.2 The Transformational Model.- III.3 Representations: Types vs. Levels.- III.4 Summary and Discussion.- IV. A Principle-Based Theory of Performance.- IV.1 The Foundations of the Processing Model.- IV.2 The Nature of Processing Complexity.- IV.3 Modularity in the Syntactic Processor.- IV.4 The Phrase Structure Module.- IV.5 The Thematic Module.- IV.6 The Chain Module: Recovering Antecedent-Trace Relations.- IV.7 Summary.- V. A Logical Model of Computation.- V.1 Principle-Based Parsing.- V.2 A Logical Model of Performance.- V.3 Control in the Syntactic Processor.- V.4 Summary and Discussion.- VI. The Specification of Modules.- VI.1 The Phrase Structure Module.- VI.2 The Chain Module.- VI.3 The Thematic Module.- VI.4 Summary.- VII. Summary and Discussion.- VII.1 A Summary of the Theory.- VII.2 Computational Properties of the Model.- VII.3 The Innate Sentence Processor.- VIII.Conclusions.- Index of Authors.- Index of Subjects.

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions