Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsing
Minimalist grammars have been used recently in a series of papers to explain well-known contrasts in human sentence processing in terms of subtle structural differences. These proposals combine a top-down parser with complexity metrics that relate parsing difficulty to memory usage. So far, though,...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences
2017-07-01
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| Series: | Journal of Language Modelling |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://jlm.ipipan.waw.pl/index.php/JLM/article/view/157 |
| _version_ | 1818300110147158016 |
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| author | Thomas Graf James Monette Chong Zhang |
| author_facet | Thomas Graf James Monette Chong Zhang |
| author_sort | Thomas Graf |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Minimalist grammars have been used recently in a series of papers to explain well-known contrasts in human sentence processing in terms of subtle structural differences. These proposals combine a top-down parser with complexity metrics that relate parsing difficulty to memory usage. So far, though, there has been no large-scale exploration of the space of viable metrics. Building on this earlier work, we compare the ability of 1600 metrics to derive several processing effects observed with relative clauses, many of which have been proven difficult to unify. We show that among those 1600 candidates, a few metrics (and only a few) can provide a unified account of all these contrasts. This is a welcome result for two reasons: First, it provides a novel account of extensively studied psycholinguistic data. Second, it significantly limits the number of viable metrics that may be applied to other phenomena, thus reducing theoretical indeterminacy. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T05:01:54Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b5ef3918b39b4faa9b31d76b10f56699 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2299-856X 2299-8470 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T05:01:54Z |
| publishDate | 2017-07-01 |
| publisher | Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Language Modelling |
| spelling | doaj.art-b5ef3918b39b4faa9b31d76b10f566992022-12-21T23:58:46ZengInstitute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of SciencesJournal of Language Modelling2299-856X2299-84702017-07-015110.15398/jlm.v5i1.15760Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsingThomas Graf0James Monette1Chong Zhang2Stony Brook UnivierstyStony Brook UniversityStony Brook UnivierstyMinimalist grammars have been used recently in a series of papers to explain well-known contrasts in human sentence processing in terms of subtle structural differences. These proposals combine a top-down parser with complexity metrics that relate parsing difficulty to memory usage. So far, though, there has been no large-scale exploration of the space of viable metrics. Building on this earlier work, we compare the ability of 1600 metrics to derive several processing effects observed with relative clauses, many of which have been proven difficult to unify. We show that among those 1600 candidates, a few metrics (and only a few) can provide a unified account of all these contrasts. This is a welcome result for two reasons: First, it provides a novel account of extensively studied psycholinguistic data. Second, it significantly limits the number of viable metrics that may be applied to other phenomena, thus reducing theoretical indeterminacy.https://jlm.ipipan.waw.pl/index.php/JLM/article/view/157parsingsentence processingMinimalist GrammarsMemory UsageRelative ClausesPromotion Analysis |
| spellingShingle | Thomas Graf James Monette Chong Zhang Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsing Journal of Language Modelling parsing sentence processing Minimalist Grammars Memory Usage Relative Clauses Promotion Analysis |
| title | Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsing |
| title_full | Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsing |
| title_fullStr | Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsing |
| title_full_unstemmed | Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsing |
| title_short | Relative clauses as a benchmark for Minimalist parsing |
| title_sort | relative clauses as a benchmark for minimalist parsing |
| topic | parsing sentence processing Minimalist Grammars Memory Usage Relative Clauses Promotion Analysis |
| url | https://jlm.ipipan.waw.pl/index.php/JLM/article/view/157 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT thomasgraf relativeclausesasabenchmarkforminimalistparsing AT jamesmonette relativeclausesasabenchmarkforminimalistparsing AT chongzhang relativeclausesasabenchmarkforminimalistparsing |