Related Experiment Videos
The role of structure in coreference assignment during sentence comprehension
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
|January 1, 1989
Summary
Syntactic constraints guide antecedent reactivation during sentence comprehension. Grammatical rules restrict choices, with pragmatic factors influencing later processing stages when syntax is insufficient.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Science
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Sentence comprehension involves resolving anaphora, linking pronouns or other referring expressions to their antecedents.
- The precise mechanisms and constraints governing antecedent selection remain a key area of investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of syntactic constraints on antecedent reactivation and assignment for anaphoric elements.
- To determine the temporal interplay between syntactic and pragmatic information in coreference resolution.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of on-line studies measuring the time course of coreference processing.
- Examination of behavioral or neuroimaging data reflecting real-time comprehension.
Main Results:
- Reactivation of potential antecedents is significantly restricted by available grammatical constraints.
- Syntactic information takes precedence in constraining antecedent selection during initial processing stages.
Conclusions:
- Grammatical constraints play a crucial, early role in resolving anaphora during sentence processing.
- Pragmatic information becomes relevant for antecedent selection only when syntactic cues are absent or insufficient, indicating a hierarchical processing model.