36.2613, Books: Processing Dependencies in Discourse: Schmitz (2025)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2613. Wed Sep 03 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2613, Books: Processing Dependencies in Discourse: Schmitz (2025)

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Date: 02-Sep-2025
From: Jan Martin [lotdissertations-fgw at uva.nl]
Subject: Processing Dependencies in Discourse: Schmitz (2025)


Title: Processing Dependencies in Discourse
Subtitle: Memory Retrieval in Dependency Resolution Beyond the
Syntactic Domain
Series Title: LOT Dissertation Series
Publication Year: 2025

Publisher: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke
(LOT)
           http://www.lotpublications.nl/
Book URL: https://dx.medra.org/10.48273/LOT0694

Author(s): Tijn Schmitz

Paperback
ISBN: 978-94-6093-479-7
Pages: 245
Price: €37.00

Abstract:

Memory Retrieval in Dependency Resolution Beyond the Syntactic Domain
Language is structured in a way that requires the establishment of
linguistic dependency relations. This involves the storage and
retrieval of linguistic information in memory during language
processing. Linguistic rules determine which dependency relations are
possible and which are not. Studying the real-time deployment of these
rules has provided important insights into the retrieval mechanism
underlying language processing, which is generally assumed to be a
cue-based, content-addressable memory mechanism.
The majority of existing research focused on the deployment of
syntactic rules in intra-sentential dependency relations. However,
dependencies are not limited to the syntactic domain: relations in
discourse are essential for language production and comprehension as
well. This dissertation focuses on the resolution of linguistic
dependencies that span across multiple sentences, and the impact of
structural constraints at discourse level. In a series of experiments
on the resolution of cross-sentential anaphoric pronouns and additive
presuppositions, this dissertation shows that the retrieval of
information from memory is not restricted to the syntactic level but
also exists at a much larger scale: discourse. The relevance of
structural constraints at discourse level challenges the architecture
of existing theories of language processing, and this dissertation
advocates a general cue-based memory retrieval mechanism, by assuming
that not the resolution process itself, but the relevant constraints
can be domain-specific.
In sum, this dissertation provides an important window into the memory
retrieval process underlying the resolution of dependencies in
discourse, and in this way contributes to a more complete picture of
language processing.

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics




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