The Experts below are selected from a list of 261 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Maryellen C Macdonald - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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experience and Grammatical Agreement statistical learning shapes number Agreement production
Cognition, 2010Co-Authors: Todd R Haskell, Robert Thornton, Maryellen C MacdonaldAbstract:A robust result in research on the production of Grammatical Agreement is that speakers are more likely to produce an erroneous verb with phrases such as the key to the cabinets, with a singular noun followed by a plural one, than with phrases such as the keys to the cabinet, where a plural noun is followed by a singular. These asymmetries are thought to reflect core language production processes. Previous accounts have attributed error patterns to a syntactic number feature present on plurals but not singulars. An alternative approach is presented in which a process similar to structural priming contributes to the error asymmetry via speakers’ past experiences with related Agreement constructions. A corpus analysis and two Agreement production studies test this account. The results suggest that Agreement production is shaped by statistical learning from past language experience. Implications for accounts of Agreement are discussed.
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Constituent Structure and Linear Order in Language Production: Evidence From Subject-Verb Agreement
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 2005Co-Authors: Todd R Haskell, Maryellen C MacdonaldAbstract:A number of studies have shown that structural factors play a much larger role than the linear order of words during the production of Grammatical Agreement. These findings have been used as evidence for a stage in the production process at which hierarchical relations between constituents have been established (a necessary precursor to Agreement), but before the final linear order of words is determined. The current article combines evidence from off-line ratings, online production studies, and a corpus analysis in support of the view that linear order effects do exist. These findings have implications both for theories of Agreement production and language production more generally.
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plausibility and Grammatical Agreement
Journal of Memory and Language, 2003Co-Authors: Robert Thornton, Maryellen C MacdonaldAbstract:Three experiments examined plausibility effects on the production and comprehension of subject–verb Agreement. In a production task, participants were given a verb and sentence preamble and asked to create a complete passive sentence. The preambles contained two nouns (e.g., the album by the classical composers). The plausibility of the verb was manipulated so that either (a) both nouns could be plausible passive subjects (e.g., praised, as both albums and composers can plausibly be praised) or (b) only the head noun could be a plausible subject (e.g., played, as only albums can plausibly be played). The comprehension task was self-paced reading with the same materials. The results from both methodologies demonstrated robust plausibility effects. There were higher Agreement error rates in production and longer RTs at the verb in comprehension when both nouns were plausible subjects than when only the head was plausible. Implications for current production models are considered and an alternative account is presented that is motivated by current comprehension models and other recent production data.
Katrien Beuls - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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agent based models of strategies for the emergence and evolution of Grammatical Agreement
PLOS ONE, 2013Co-Authors: Katrien Beuls, Luc SteelsAbstract:Grammatical Agreement means that features associated with one linguistic unit (for example number or gender) become associated with another unit and then possibly overtly expressed, typically with morphological markers. It is one of the key mechanisms used in many languages to show that certain linguistic units within an utterance Grammatically depend on each other. Agreement systems are puzzling because they can be highly complex in terms of what features they use and how they are expressed. Moreover, Agreement systems have undergone considerable change in the historical evolution of languages. This article presents language game models with populations of agents in order to find out for what reasons and by what cultural processes and cognitive strategies Agreement systems arise. It demonstrates that Agreement systems are motivated by the need to minimize combinatorial search and semantic ambiguity, and it shows, for the first time, that once a population of agents adopts a strategy to invent, acquire and coordinate meaningful markers through social learning, linguistic self-organization leads to the spontaneous emergence and cultural transmission of an Agreement system. The article also demonstrates how attested Grammaticalization phenomena, such as phonetic reduction and conventionalized use of Agreement markers, happens as a side effect of additional economizing principles, in particular minimization of articulatory effort and reduction of the marker inventory. More generally, the article illustrates a novel approach for studying how key features of human languages might emerge.
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simulating the emergence of Grammatical Agreement in multi agent language games
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2011Co-Authors: Katrien Beuls, Sebastian HoferAbstract:Grammatical Agreement is present in many of the world's languages today and has become an essential feature that guides linguistic processing. When two words in a sentence are said to "agree", this means that they share certain features such as "gender", "number", "person" or others. The primary hypothesis of this paper is that marking Agreement within one linguistic phrase reduces processing effort as phrasal constituents can more easily be recognized. The drive to reduce processing effort introduces the rise of Agreement marking in a population of multiple agents by means of an incrementally aligned mapping between the most discriminatory features of a particular linguistic unit and their associative markers. A series of experiments compare feature selection methods for one-to-one Agreement mappings, and show how an Agreement system can be bootstrapped.
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IJCAI - Simulating the emergence of Grammatical Agreement in multi-agent language games
2011Co-Authors: Katrien Beuls, Sebastian HoferAbstract:Grammatical Agreement is present in many of the world's languages today and has become an essential feature that guides linguistic processing. When two words in a sentence are said to "agree", this means that they share certain features such as "gender", "number", "person" or others. The primary hypothesis of this paper is that marking Agreement within one linguistic phrase reduces processing effort as phrasal constituents can more easily be recognized. The drive to reduce processing effort introduces the rise of Agreement marking in a population of multiple agents by means of an incrementally aligned mapping between the most discriminatory features of a particular linguistic unit and their associative markers. A series of experiments compare feature selection methods for one-to-one Agreement mappings, and show how an Agreement system can be bootstrapped.
Sebastian Hofer - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Computational Issues in Fluid Construction Grammar - Complex Declension Systems and Morphology in Fluid Construction Grammar: A Case Study of Polish
Computational Issues in Fluid Construction Grammar, 2012Co-Authors: Sebastian HoferAbstract:Different languages employ different strategies for Grammatical Agreement. Slavic languages such as Polish realize Agreement with rich declension systems. The Polish declension system features seven cases, two number categories and is subdivided further with respect to gender and animacy. In order to differentiate among these different Grammatical categories Polish exhibits a complex, syncretistic and highly irregular morphology. But not only the morphology is complex, the Grammatical rules that govern Agreement are, too. For example, the appropriate case of a noun in a verbal phrase does not only depend on the verb itself but also on whether the verb is in the scope of a negation or not.
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simulating the emergence of Grammatical Agreement in multi agent language games
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2011Co-Authors: Katrien Beuls, Sebastian HoferAbstract:Grammatical Agreement is present in many of the world's languages today and has become an essential feature that guides linguistic processing. When two words in a sentence are said to "agree", this means that they share certain features such as "gender", "number", "person" or others. The primary hypothesis of this paper is that marking Agreement within one linguistic phrase reduces processing effort as phrasal constituents can more easily be recognized. The drive to reduce processing effort introduces the rise of Agreement marking in a population of multiple agents by means of an incrementally aligned mapping between the most discriminatory features of a particular linguistic unit and their associative markers. A series of experiments compare feature selection methods for one-to-one Agreement mappings, and show how an Agreement system can be bootstrapped.
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IJCAI - Simulating the emergence of Grammatical Agreement in multi-agent language games
2011Co-Authors: Katrien Beuls, Sebastian HoferAbstract:Grammatical Agreement is present in many of the world's languages today and has become an essential feature that guides linguistic processing. When two words in a sentence are said to "agree", this means that they share certain features such as "gender", "number", "person" or others. The primary hypothesis of this paper is that marking Agreement within one linguistic phrase reduces processing effort as phrasal constituents can more easily be recognized. The drive to reduce processing effort introduces the rise of Agreement marking in a population of multiple agents by means of an incrementally aligned mapping between the most discriminatory features of a particular linguistic unit and their associative markers. A series of experiments compare feature selection methods for one-to-one Agreement mappings, and show how an Agreement system can be bootstrapped.
Luc Steels - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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agent based models of strategies for the emergence and evolution of Grammatical Agreement
PLOS ONE, 2013Co-Authors: Katrien Beuls, Luc SteelsAbstract:Grammatical Agreement means that features associated with one linguistic unit (for example number or gender) become associated with another unit and then possibly overtly expressed, typically with morphological markers. It is one of the key mechanisms used in many languages to show that certain linguistic units within an utterance Grammatically depend on each other. Agreement systems are puzzling because they can be highly complex in terms of what features they use and how they are expressed. Moreover, Agreement systems have undergone considerable change in the historical evolution of languages. This article presents language game models with populations of agents in order to find out for what reasons and by what cultural processes and cognitive strategies Agreement systems arise. It demonstrates that Agreement systems are motivated by the need to minimize combinatorial search and semantic ambiguity, and it shows, for the first time, that once a population of agents adopts a strategy to invent, acquire and coordinate meaningful markers through social learning, linguistic self-organization leads to the spontaneous emergence and cultural transmission of an Agreement system. The article also demonstrates how attested Grammaticalization phenomena, such as phonetic reduction and conventionalized use of Agreement markers, happens as a side effect of additional economizing principles, in particular minimization of articulatory effort and reduction of the marker inventory. More generally, the article illustrates a novel approach for studying how key features of human languages might emerge.
Robert Thornton - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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experience and Grammatical Agreement statistical learning shapes number Agreement production
Cognition, 2010Co-Authors: Todd R Haskell, Robert Thornton, Maryellen C MacdonaldAbstract:A robust result in research on the production of Grammatical Agreement is that speakers are more likely to produce an erroneous verb with phrases such as the key to the cabinets, with a singular noun followed by a plural one, than with phrases such as the keys to the cabinet, where a plural noun is followed by a singular. These asymmetries are thought to reflect core language production processes. Previous accounts have attributed error patterns to a syntactic number feature present on plurals but not singulars. An alternative approach is presented in which a process similar to structural priming contributes to the error asymmetry via speakers’ past experiences with related Agreement constructions. A corpus analysis and two Agreement production studies test this account. The results suggest that Agreement production is shaped by statistical learning from past language experience. Implications for accounts of Agreement are discussed.
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plausibility and Grammatical Agreement
Journal of Memory and Language, 2003Co-Authors: Robert Thornton, Maryellen C MacdonaldAbstract:Three experiments examined plausibility effects on the production and comprehension of subject–verb Agreement. In a production task, participants were given a verb and sentence preamble and asked to create a complete passive sentence. The preambles contained two nouns (e.g., the album by the classical composers). The plausibility of the verb was manipulated so that either (a) both nouns could be plausible passive subjects (e.g., praised, as both albums and composers can plausibly be praised) or (b) only the head noun could be a plausible subject (e.g., played, as only albums can plausibly be played). The comprehension task was self-paced reading with the same materials. The results from both methodologies demonstrated robust plausibility effects. There were higher Agreement error rates in production and longer RTs at the verb in comprehension when both nouns were plausible subjects than when only the head was plausible. Implications for current production models are considered and an alternative account is presented that is motivated by current comprehension models and other recent production data.
