The logic of syntactic priming and acceptability judgments
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Updated: Feb 15, 2026

A Psychophysics Paradigm for the Collection and Analysis of Similarity Judgments
Published on: March 1, 2022
Phoebe Gaston1, Nick Huang1, Colin Phillips1
1Department of Linguistics,University of Maryland,College Park,MD 20742.pgaston@umd.eduznhuang@umd.educolin@umd.eduphoebegaston.wordpress.com ling.umd.edu/~znhuang colinphillips.net.
Abstract:
A critical flaw in Branigan & Pickering's (B&P's) advocacy of structural priming is the absence of a theory of priming. This undermines their claims about the value of priming as a methodology. In contrast, acceptability judgments enable clearer inferences about structure. It is important to engage thoroughly with the logic behind different structural diagnostics.
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