Chapter published in:
Crossroads Semantics: Computation, experiment and grammar
Edited by Hilke Reckman, Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng, Maarten Hijzelendoorn and Rint Sybesma
[Not in series 210] 2017
► pp. 9–20

Chapter 1
Bridging theoretical and experimental linguistic research

| Leiden University Centre for Linguistics | Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition
At present, the alignment of linguistic theories and processing models is in its infancy. While scholars in both research groups try to unravel the nature of human language, it appears to be problematic to bring the two enterprises together. Relevant questions include whether the groups – each employing different levels of analysis – ultimately describe different cognitive systems and to what extent the ways in which data are collected (i.e. offline versus online) address the same hypotheses. In this paper I will argue in favour of a single cognitive system that maps linear strings (sounds or symbols) to complex conceptual representations and vice versa, comparable to a “One-System Architecture” as recently proposed by Lewis & Phillips (2015). In the context of ellipsis research, I will show that we should understand the human language system in terms of three levels of description. Further, I will argue for computational linguistics to play a mediating role in bridging theoretical and psycholinguistic methods of enquiry.
Keywords: grammatical theories, computation, sentence processing, cognitive architecture of language, computational (psycho)linguistics, ellipsis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What is at stake?
  • 3.Methods of measurement
    • 3.1Offline versus online data collection
    • 3.2Online data in ellipsis research
  • 4.Towards a unified research program
    • 4.1Three levels of analysis
    • 4.2Computational (psycho)linguistics
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 12 April 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.210.01rui
References
Arregui, Ana, Charles Clifton Jr., Lyn Frazier & Keir Moulton
2006 Processing elided verb phrases with flawed antecedents: The recycling hypothesis. Journal of Memory and Language 55(2). 232–246. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baggio, Giosue, Michiel van Lambalgen & Peter Hagoort
2012 Language, Linguistics and Cognition. In Ruth M. Kempson, Tim Fernando & Nicholas Asher (eds.), Philosophy of Linguistics, 325–355. North Holland. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1965 Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cremers, Crit
1993 On parsing coordination categorically: Leiden University dissertation.Google Scholar
Cremers, Crit & Maarten Hijzelendoorn
2014 Meaningful grammar is binary, local, anti-symmetric, recursive and incomplete. In Johanneke Caspers, Yiya Chen, Willemijn Heeren, Jos Pacilly & Ellen van Zanten (eds.), Above and Beyond the Segments: Experimental linguistics and phonetics, 60–70.Google Scholar
Embick, David & David Poeppel
2015 Towards a computational(ist) neurobiology of language: correlational, integrated and explanatory neurolinguistics. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 30(4). 357–366. Crossref.Google Scholar
Frazier, Lyn & Charles Clifton, Jr.
2001 Parsing Coordinates and Ellipsis: Copy α. Syntax 4(1). 1–22. Crossref.Google Scholar
Hijzelendoorn, Maarten & Crit Cremers
2009 An object-oriented and fast lexicon for semantic generation. Computation and Language abs/0905.3318.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray
2002 Foundations of language: Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Richard L. & Shravan Vasishth
2005 An activation-based model of sentence processing as skilled memory retrieval. Cognitive Science 29(3). 375–419. Crossref.Google Scholar
Lewis, Shevaun & Colin Phillips
2015 Aligning grammatical theories and language processing models. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 44(1). 27–46. Crossref.Google Scholar
Marr, David
1982 Vision. San Fransisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Martin, Andrea E. & Brian McElree
2008 A content-addressable pointer mechanism underlies comprehension of verb-phrase ellipsis. Journal of Memory and Language 58(3). 879–906. Crossref.Google Scholar
Poeppel, David & David Embick
2005 Defining the relation between linguistics and neuroscience. In Anne Cutler (ed.), Twenty-first century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones, 103–120. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Google Scholar
Reckman, Hilletje Gezina Bouwke
2009 Flat but not shallow: Towards flatter representations in deep semantic parsing for precise and feasible inferencing: Leiden University dissertation.Google Scholar
Sprouse, Jon & Diogo Almeida
2013 The role of experimental syntax in an integrated cognitive science of language. In Cedric Boeckx & Kleanthes K. Grohmann (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics., 181–202. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar