Prosodic Effects in Minimal Attachment

Marslen–Wilson, William D.; Tyler, Lorraine K.; Warren, Paul; Grenier, P.; Lee, C.S.

doi:10.1080/14640749208401316

Cited by 141 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, ERP data have demonstrated that in adults prosodic information influences syntactic parsing very fast, that is in a very early phase during speech comprehension (Eckstein and Friederici, 2006) and that the brain's sensitivity to prosodic features is present not only in adults (Pannekamp et al, 2005), but also in infants (Pannekamp et al, 2006). Psycholinguistic studies in adults (Marslen-Wilson et al, 1992;Warren et al, 1995) have provided evidence for an interaction of prosodic and syntactic processes during auditory language comprehension (Frazier et al, 2006), and psycholinguistic models of language acquisition state a strong reliance on prosodic information during early language processing (Weissenborn and Höhle, 2001). The shorter right than left BOLD latencies for children in our study seem to match these electrophysiological data and, moreover, are consistent with the psycholinguistic models.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal dynamics of perisylvian activation during language processing in children and adults

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The perisylvian region of the human cortex is known to play a major role in language processing. Especially the superior temporal cortex (STC) and the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) have been investigated with respect to their particular involvement in language comprehension. In the present research, the timing of recruitment of these language-related brain areas in both hemispheres was examined as a function of age using functional imaging data of 6-year-old children and adults with a special focus on blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response time courses. The results show that children's activation time courses differ from that of adults. First, children show an overall later peak of BOLD responses. Second, children's IFC responds much later than their STC, while in adults the difference between both regions is less pronounced. Within the STC, both groups show similar regionally U-shaped activation patterns with fastest peaks in voxels at the STC's mid-portion around Heschl's gyrus and longer latencies in anterior and posterior directions, suggesting a coarsely similar information flow in adults and children in the temporal region. Finally, children in contrast to adults, display a temporal primacy of right over left hemispheric activation. The observed overall latency differences between children and adults are in line with the assumption of ongoing maturation in perisylvian brain regions and the connections between them. A functional perspective on BOLD timing argues for a developmental change from higher processing costs in children compared to adults due to slower and less automatic language processes, in particular those located in the IFC. The observed hemispheric differences are discussed in the context of developmental models assuming a high reliance on right-hemisphere-based suprasegmental information processing during language comprehension in childhood.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal dynamics of perisylvian activation during language processing in children and adults

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These effects of prosody emerge quickly during online sentence comprehension, suggesting that this is a robust property of the human parser (Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Warren, Grenier, & Lee, 1992;Nagel, Shapiro, Tuller, & Nawy, 1996;Pynte & Prieur, 1996;Kjelgaard & Speer, 1999;Steinhauer, Alter & Frederici, 1999;Snedeker & Trueswell, 2003;Warren, Grabe & Nolan, 1995;Weber, Grice & Crocker, 2006). Naïve speakers systematically vary their prosody depending on the syntactic structure of the utterance and naïve listeners can use this variation to disambiguate the utterance (Snedeker & Trueswell, 2003;Schafer, Speer & Warren, 2005;Kraljic & Brennan, 2005).…”

Section: Authors' Notementioning

confidence: 99%

Is it all relative? Effects of prosodic boundaries on the comprehension and production of attachment ambiguities

Snedeker

Casserly

2010

Language and Cognitive Processes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While there is ample evidence that prosody and syntax mutually constrain each other, there is considerable uncertainty about the nature of this interface. Here we explore this issue with prepositional phrase attachment ambiguities (You can feel A the cat B with the feather). Prior research has been motivated by two hypotheses: 1) The absolute boundary hypothesis (ABH) posits that attachment preferences depend on the size of the prosodic boundary before the ambiguous phrase (boundary B).2) The relative boundary hypothesis (RBH) links attachment to the relative size of boundary B and any boundary between the high and low attachment site (boundary A). However, few experiments test the unique predictions of either theory. Study 1 examines how syntax influences prosodic production. The results provide modest support for RBH and stronger support for ABH. In Study 2 we systematically vary the size of both boundaries in an offline comprehension task. We find that absolute boundary strength influences interpretation when relative boundary strength is held constant, and relative boundary strength influences interpretation when absolute boundary strength is held constant. Thus our theory of the prosody-syntax interface must account for effects of both kinds.

show abstract

“…Whereas the majority of studies of the production (and perception; see e.g., Heilman et al, 1984;Pell & Baum, 1997a;Weintraub et al, 1981) of linguistic prosody in brain-damaged patients have concentrated on global acoustic cues to sentence type (i.e., declarative vs. interrogative vs. imperative), there has recently been a surge of interest in more subtle, but extremely important linguistic distinctions that are signalled by prosodic cues in both normal speech production (e.g., Beach, 1991;Grabe & Warren, 1995;Nagel et al, 1994;Price et al, 1991), as well as in production by brain-damaged patients (e.g., Grela & Gandour, 1998;Schirmer et al, 2001;Walker et al, 2004; see also Grosjean & Hirt, 1996;Marslen-Wilson et al,.1992;Nagel et al, 1994;Shapiro & Nagel, 1995;Walker et al, 2001;2004 for data on perception). Of particular relevance to the present investigation are a number of investigations that have examined the ability of brain-damaged patients to mark syntactic boundaries using prosodic cues.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural substrates of linguistic prosody: Evidence from syntactic disambiguation in the productions of brain-damaged patients

Shah¹,

Baum²,

Dwivedi³

2006

Brain and Language

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present investigation focussed on the neural substrates underlying linguistic distinctions that are signalled by prosodic cues. A production experiment was conducted to examine the ability of left-(LHD) and right-(RHD) hemisphere damaged patients and normal controls to use temporal and fundamental frequency cues to disambiguate sentences which include one or more Intonational Phrase level (IPh) prosodic boundaries.Acoustic analyses of subjects' productions of three sentence-types -parentheticals, appositives, and tags -showed that LHD speakers, compared to RHD and normal controls, exhibited impairments in the control of temporal parameters signalling phrase boundaries, including inconsistent patterns of pre-boundary lengthening and longer-thannormal pause durations in non-boundary positions. Somewhat surprisingly, a perception test presented to a group of normal native listeners showed listeners experienced greatest difficulty in identifying the presence or absence of boundaries in the productions of the RHD speakers. The findings support a cue lateralization hypothesis in which prosodic domain plays an important role.

show abstract

Prosodic Effects in Minimal Attachment

Cited by 141 publications

References 19 publications

Temporal dynamics of perisylvian activation during language processing in children and adults

Temporal dynamics of perisylvian activation during language processing in children and adults

Is it all relative? Effects of prosodic boundaries on the comprehension and production of attachment ambiguities

Neural substrates of linguistic prosody: Evidence from syntactic disambiguation in the productions of brain-damaged patients

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About