16.376, Diss: Comp Ling/Cognitive Science: Hale: 'Grammar...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-376. Mon Feb 07 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.376, Diss: Comp Ling/Cognitive Science: Hale: 'Grammar...'

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1)
Date: 07-Feb-2005
From: John Hale < jthale at msu.edu >
Subject: Grammar, Uncertainty and Sentence Processing

	
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 12:19:02
From: John Hale < jthale at msu.edu >
Subject: Grammar, Uncertainty and Sentence Processing  	


Institution: Johns Hopkins University
Program: Department of Cognitive Science
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2003

Author: John Hale

Dissertation Title: Grammar, Uncertainty and Sentence Processing

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science
                     Computational Linguistics
                     Linguistic Theories
                     Syntax

Subject Language(s): English (ENG)


Dissertation Director(s):
Edward A.F. Gibson
Paul Smolensky
Edward P Stabler, Jr

Dissertation Abstract:

Toward a probabilistic theory of human sentence processing, this
dissertation proposes a definition of computational work done in the course
of analyzing sentences generated by formal grammars. It applies the idea of
\emph{entropy} from information~theory to the set of derivations compatible
with an initial substring of a sentence.

Given a probabilistic grammar, this permits the set of such compatible
derivations to be viewed as a random variable, and the change in
derivational uncertainty from word to word to be calculated.

This definition of computational work is examined as a cognitive~model of
human sentence~processing difficulty. To apply the model, a variety of
existing syntactic proposals for English sentences are cast as
probabilistic Generalized~Phrase~Structure~Grammars~\cite{gpsg:book} and
probabilistic Minimalist~Grammars~\cite{stabler97}.

It is shown that the amount of predicted processing effort in relative
clauses correlates with the Accessibility~Hierarchy of relativized
grammatical relations \cite{keenan77} on a Kaynian \shortcite{kayne94} view
of relative clause structure.

Results from three new sentence~reading experiments confirm the findings of
\namecite{keenan87} by demonstrating effects of the Accessibility~Hierarchy
on question-answering accuracy, but find only limited support for the AH in
online reading times.





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