In this event-related potential (ERP) study we reevaluate syntax-first approaches to sentence processing by implementing a novel paradigm in French that includes correct sentences, pure syntactic category violations, lexical-semantic anomalies, and combined anomalies. Our balanced design systematically controlled for target word (noun vs. verb) and the context immediately preceding it. Group results from 36 native speakers of Quebec French revealed that, up to 300 ms, ERPs elicited by syntactic category violations were comparable with ERP responses to correct sentences, showing that there is no early activation reflecting syntactic category identification. Instead, in response to all anomalous conditions, we observed an N400 followed by a P600. Combined anomalies yielded additive effects of syntactic category and lexical-semantic anomalies on the N400, and a large P600 effect similar to the one observed in the pure syntactic condition. These results provide strong evidence against the hypothesis that (i) syntactic categories are processed first, and (ii) that syntactic category errors "block" lexical-semantic processing. Further, the N400 effect in response to pure syntactic category violations reflects a mismatch detection between a predicted word-stem and the actual target. This mechanism takes place simultaneously (and potentially in parallel) with lexical-semantic processing. In contrast, an interaction of syntax and semantics for the P600 reveals that the same neurocognitive resources are recruited for syntactic and semantic integration, both promoted by the implementation of an acceptability judgement task in our design. Additional analyses of individual data complemented these observations: during sentence processing, participants did not rely on one single cognitive mechanism reflected by either the N400 or the P600 effect but on both, suggesting that the biphasic N400-P600 ERP wave can indeed be considered to be an index of phrase-structure violations in most individuals, at least if they are realized on content words.
This paper studies the role of eye tracking in detecting grammatical violation in reading tasks. It tests the assumption that encountering syntactic violation has its correspondence in the behavioral patterns associated with gazing. Applying the offered by the research environment , it is shown that the observation of grammaticality/agrammaticality in samples of experiments is reflected in the partial correlation of these categories across a number of structural patterns.
This study investigates the emergence of prepositions in Hebrew-speaking children aged 2;6-6;0 years, analyzing a peer talk corpus of 75 children across five age groups. Across 45-minute triadic conversations, we examined the distributions, semantic functions, and form-function relations of prepositions. Two results sections are presented.
Language is a productive system, allowing children to create new utterances they've never heard before, making it tricky to determine when they first demonstrate linguistic productivity.
Researchers conducted a study with 64 English-learning children, examining when they started to combine determiners and nouns in ways not seen in their caregivers' speech.
By combining behavioral data and computational modeling, they found that the children were generating unique combinations similar to the model, indicating that they too were creatively using language beyond their prior experiences.
Usage-based theories of children's syntactic acquisition (e.g., Tomasello, 2000a) predict that children's abstract lexical categories emerge from their experience with particular words in constructions in their input.
* The dataset was originally in Spanish, translated into English, and preprocessed to ensure quality by removing duplicates and missing values, focusing on women with an average age of 53.
* Various machine learning models, including KNN, SVM, and advanced models like BERT and BioGPT, were evaluated for their effectiveness in classifying BI-RADS categories using NLP techniques to extract meaningful information from the reports.
