Syntax: Structural Descriptions of Sentences

Structural Priming

• Structure of preceding sentences helps/hinders the reading times of subsequent sentences.
• Dative alternation
• The woman gave her car to the church
• The woman gave the church her car
• One of these forms is primed depending on what the prime was
• V NP NP  gave the church her car
• V NP PP  gave her car to the church

Spoken Language Syntax

• Not as “clean”, rampant disfluency.
• edits (restarts, repairs)
• Filled pauses
• Ungrammaticality
• Sentence  utterance.
• “Clean up” the utterance first before understanding it.