Automaton Theories of Human Sentence Comprehension

Different kinds of grammars may actually be used in models of perceptual processing. By relating grammars to cognitive architecture, John T. Hale shows step-by-step how incremental parsing works and how specific learning rules might lead to frequency-sensitive preferences. Along the way, this book reconsiders garden-pathing, the parallel/serial distinction and information-theoretical complexity metrics, such as surprisal. This book is a must for cognitive scientists of language.

John T. Hale is an associate professor in the Department of Linguistics at Cornell University.

Preface
1. Introduction 1
2. The Notion of a Grammar 11
3. Generalized Left-Corner Parsing 19
4. Garden-Pathing 35
5. Cognitive Architecture for Linguists 53
6. Experience as a Control Strategy for Incremental Parsing 67
7. Information-Theoretical Complexity Metrics 83
8. Surprisal and Chunking 91
9. Conclusion 99
References 107

September 29, 2014

ISBN (Paperback): 9781575867472
ISBN (Cloth): 9781575867489
ISBN (electronic): 9781575867496

Automaton Theories of Human Sentence Comprehension

Contents