Syntax and Parsing (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

This book examines the role of syntax in theories of sentence comprehension, and argues for a distinct processing component which is devoted to the recovery of syntactic structure and which utilizes the contrasting types of information found within a Government-Binding grammar. Paul Gorrell contrasts the primary relations (dominance and precedence) and secondary relations (case assignment, theta-role assignment, etc.) in a phrase-structure tree, and shows how this computational distinction of information types is reflected in the internal structure of the parser, which consists of two subcomponents: a structure builder (responsible for creating nodes in a tree and positing primary relations between them), and a structure interpreter (responsible for analyzing the tree in terms of secondary relations). This model can also predict garden-path phenomena in the processing of verb-final clauses.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: United Kingdom, 13 April 1995

Format: Hardcover, 196 pages

Dimensions: 23.7 x 16 x 1.9 centimeters (0.42 kg)

Writer: Paul Gorrell, P. Austin, J. Bresnan, B. Comrie

Table of ContentsAcknowledgments; 1. Introduction; 2. Properties of the grammar; 3. Analyses of previous work; 4. Properties of the parser; 5. Modularity and structural determinism; 6. Conclusion; Reference; Index.

Promotional InformationAn examination of the role of syntax in theories of sentence comprehension.