Non-information-density approaches to online processing -- Seminar Winter 2015/2016

Non-information-density approaches to online processing
Seminar Winter 2015/2016

Course information
Goals
Mailing list

Requirements and evaluation
Calendar and readings
Suggested papers for presentation

In this seminar, we will take a look at the psycholinguistic literature on phenomena in online sentence processing. Specifically, we will focus on the aspects of online sentence processing that are not directly related to information density or immediate communicative efficiency considerations, but rather on other aspects such as (but not limited to) structural/derivational factors or memory limits.

While the focus of the course will be on sentence processing in adults, students will be free to choose and present papers that highlight acquisition or evolutionary and biolinguistic factors in understanding the structural constraints on online processing. Formal and theoretical papers that highlight non- or indirectly-communicative aspects of language that shed light on processing are also welcome.

Prerequisites: it's best if you're familiar with basic concepts in syntax and semantics, and even better, psycholinguistics. The papers can cover a broad range, so I can't be too specific.

Mailing List

If you want to participate in the course, you have to sign up for the mailing list. Sometimes I will point out material this way, and I also encourage using the list for discussion purposes.

Requirements and evaluation

You are expected to do one presentation. Some of you will want to submit term papers for additional credit. Some of you will want an oral exam. For the presentation, you can just present a single paper (in detail), which is what most people do here.

For the term paper, you should discuss the topic with me before the end of the semester. You can approach me for topics and literature suggestions, just make an appointment by email.

Your participation in the presentations/discussions led by your peers is also important. Participating will help you do well in the oral exam, if you choose to do one, as well as perhaps inspire term paper topics and improve your own presentation.

Calendar and readings

I will lecture for a couple of weeks, and then we will switch to student-led presentations/discussions. We'll try to assign those as soon as pssible.

Date	Topic
28.10.2015	Introduction to the course, organizational details. Motivations, getting to know each other. No readings required for this day. Slides available here.
4.11.2015	Asad is presenting. Reading: Phillips and Lewis 2013 Slides available here.
11.11.2015	Paper discussion Reading: Kempen 2013
18.11.2015	NO SEMINAR
25.11.2015	Pavel Shkadzko is presenting. Reading: Dillon et al. (2014).
2.12.2015	Alexander Bentcamp is presenting. Reading: Sato et al. (2013)
9.12.2015	Alena Vasilevich is presenting. Reading: Amsel et al. (2015)
16.12.2015	Max Paulus is presenting. Readings (pick one): Lüdtke et al. (2008) or Fischler et. al (1983).
23.12.2015	NO SEMINAR
30.12.2015	NO SEMINAR
6.1.2016	NO SEMINAR
13.1.2015	SEMINAR POSTPONED
20.1.2015	Aniko Kovac is presenting. Reading: Marantz (2005)
27.1.2015	Christian Wellner is presenting. Reading: Jackendoff (2011)
3.2.2015	Paper discussion. Reading: Payne et al. (2015)
10.2.2015	Open slot/discussion. Wrap-up presentation. Reading TBA.

The rest of the calendar will unfold as I gauge interest, student presentations are scheduled, and so on.

Suggested papers for presentation

This is a HUGE topic, since it's defined negatively, so this is BY NO MEANS a comprehensive list. It's a small sample of what you would find in the literature. And I am very open to helping you find something that you might be more interested in, if you can't choose one yourself. This list may also grow over time. Some of these I may present myself if no one chooses them. You can also choose to present parts of a very long paper: I'm flexible. NB: some of them require you to use a campus IP address to access, because they come from expensive journals. (The VPN works.)

Experimental:
- Amsel, B. D., DeLong, K. A., & Kutas, M. (2015). Close, but no garlic: Perceptuomotor and event knowledge activation during language comprehension. Journal of memory and language, 82, 118-132.
- Brian Dillon, Wing Yee Chow, Matt Wagers, Taomei Guo, Fengqin Liu and Colin Phillips. (2014). The structure-sensitivity of memory access: Evidence from Mandarin Chinese. Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences, 5(1025).
- Friederici, A. D. (2011). The brain basis of language processing: from structure to function. Physiological reviews, 91(4), 1357-1392.
- Hackl, M., Koster-Hale, J., & Varvoutis, J. (2012). Quantification and ACD: Evidence from Real-Time Sentence Processing. Journal of Semantics.
  - This one is quite controversial, so there are responses to it. A couple:
    - From a formal perspective: Szabolcsi, A. (2014). Quantification and ACD: What is the evidence from real-time processing evidence for? A response to Hackl et al.(2012). Journal of Semantics, 31(1), 135-145.
    - From an experimental perspective: Gibson, E., Jacobson, P., Graff, P., Mahowald, K., Fedorenko, E., & Piantadosi, S. T. (2014). A Pragmatic Account of Complexity in Definite Antecedent-Contained-Deletion Relative Clauses. Journal of Semantics.
- Payne, B. R., Lee, C.-L. and Federmeier, K. D. (2015), Revisiting the incremental effects of context on word processing: Evidence from single-word event-related brain potentials. Psychophysiology, 52: 1456–1469.
- Sato, M., Schafer, A. J., & Bergen, B. K. (2013). One word at a time: mental representations of object shape change incrementally during sentence processing. Language and Cognition, 5(4), 345-373.
Methodological/architectural:
- Gibson, E., & Fedorenko, E. (2013). The need for quantitative methods in syntax and semantics research. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28(1-2), 88-124.
  - This paper was extremely controversial and turned into a long conversation/argument, including:
    - Sprouse, J., & Almeida, D. (2013). The empirical status of data in syntax: A reply to Gibson and Fedorenko. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28(3), 222-228.
- Colin Phillips and Shevaun Lewis. (2013). Derivational order in syntax: Evidence and architectural consequences. In Directions in Derivations, edited by C. Chesi. Elsevier.
Theoretical:
- Jackendoff, R. (2011). What is the human language faculty?: Two views. Language, 87(3), 586-624.
- Marantz, A. (2005). Generative linguistics within the cognitive neuroscience of language. The Linguistic Review, 22(2-4), 429-445.
Formal/mathematical:
- Graf, T., Monette, B. F. J., Warren, G. R. A., & Zhang, C. (2015, July). A Refined Notion of Memory Usage for Minimalist Parsing. In The 14th Meeting on the Mathematics of Language (p. 1).
- Stabler, E. P. (2013). Two models of minimalist, incremental syntactic analysis. Topics in cognitive science, 5(3), 611-633.
Computational/applied:
- Zhao, K., Cross, J., & Huang, L. (2013). Optimal Incremental Parsing via Best-First Dynamic Programming. In EMNLP (pp. 758-768).
- Van Schijndel, M., Nguyen, L., & Schuler, W. (2013). An analysis of memory-based processing costs using incremental deep syntactic dependency parsing. Proceedings of CMCL.

I'll continue to expand this list until everyone has something they want to present, as there's no shortage of topics!