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Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies

E Gibson1

  • 1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA. gibson@psyche.mit.edu

Cognition
|October 17, 1998
PubMed
Summary

Syntactic Prediction Locality Theory (SPLT) explains sentence processing by modeling memory and integration costs. Locality significantly impacts these costs, clarifying various linguistic processing complexities.

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Computational Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Sentence processing relies on computational resources.
  • Existing theories struggle to explain diverse processing complexity phenomena.
  • The role of memory and integration costs in sentence comprehension is debated.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose the Syntactic Prediction Locality Theory (SPLT).
  • To model the relationship between sentence processing and computational resources.
  • To explain a wide range of processing complexity phenomena under a unified framework.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a two-component theory: integration cost and memory cost.
  • Quantified memory cost by the number of syntactic categories needed for grammatical completion.
  • Hypothesized locality effects on both memory and integration costs.

Main Results:

  • SPLT accounts for subject vs. object relative clause complexity.
  • Explains processing overload in multiply center-embedded structures.
  • Addresses cross-serial vs. center-embedded dependencies, heaviness effects, and ambiguity resolution.

Conclusions:

  • The Syntactic Prediction Locality Theory (SPLT) offers a unified explanation for sentence processing complexities.
  • Locality is a key factor influencing both memory and integration costs.
  • SPLT provides a novel framework for understanding the interplay of syntax, memory, and processing load.

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