{"title":"Predictability in Language Comprehension: Prospects and Problems for Surprisal","authors":"Adrian Staub","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011724-121517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011724-121517","url":null,"abstract":"Surprisal theory proposes that a word's predictability influences processing difficulty because each word requires the comprehender to update a probability distribution over possible sentences. This article first considers the theory's detailed predictions regarding the effects of predictability on reading time and N400 amplitude. Two rather unintuitive predictions appear to be correct based on the current evidence: There is no specific cost when an unpredictable word is encountered in a context where another word is predictable, and the function relating predictability to processing difficulty is logarithmic, not linear. Next, the article addresses the viability of the claim, also associated with Surprisal, that conditional probability is the “causal bottleneck” mediating all effects on incremental processing difficulty. This claim fares less well as conditional probability does not account for the difficulty associated with encountering a low-frequency word or the difficulty associated with garden path disambiguation. Surprisal provides a compelling account of predictability effects but does not provide a complete account of incremental processing difficulty.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141648428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Phonetics of Early Bilingualism","authors":"Mark Amengual","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031522-102542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031522-102542","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents an overview of recent research on the phonetics of early bilinguals, individuals who have acquired both of their languages early in life, by either growing up being exposed to two languages since birth (i.e., simultaneous bilinguals) or having initially learned their first language with the second language introduced at a later stage during their childhood (i.e., early sequential or successive/consecutive bilinguals). This review puts forth empirical evidence from methodologically and theoretically diverse studies on the phonetics of early bilingualism and considers explanations for the observed patterns of cross-linguistic influence on the production, perception, and processing of sounds in both of their languages. Throughout, this article discusses the critical significance of early linguistic experience on bilingual speech patterns, how early-onset bilinguals perceive speech sounds in each language, bilinguals’ phonetic abilities when producing language-specific segmental and suprasegmental features, and the dynamic nature of cross-language sound interactions in early bilingual speech.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139620646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Linguistic Encounters: A Scholar's Journey","authors":"Edward L. Keenan","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031422-123005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031422-123005","url":null,"abstract":"I sketch my zigzag path from premed biology major (1955) to PhD in linguistics (1969) to professor of linguistics at UCLA (1974–). This history may seem quaint in days of fieldwork by storyboards and Zoom. I describe encounters with language which pinballed me into linguistics: 1960–1962 as a student in Paris and summers as an interpreter with the US Department of State. Then mathematical logic (linguistics plus precision) at the University of Pennsylvania with John Corcoran; a year-plus in a peasant village in Madagascar; then 1970–1974 in England, as a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Then I land permanently at UCLA, with many working stays in Holland, Germany, and Israel.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139618710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Biased Polar Questions","authors":"Maribel Romero","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-022421-064837","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-022421-064837","url":null,"abstract":"Although the following polar question forms raise the same issue, the positive question Is Jane coming?, the low negation question Is Jane not coming?, and the high negation question Isn't Jane coming? cannot be used interchangeably because they are sensitive to the expectations that the speaker may originally have (original speaker bias) and to contextual evidence that becomes available during the conversational exchange (contextual evidence bias). This article summarizes the aspects of these constructions on which agreement has been reached and identifies central points of empirical and theoretical divergence in the literature; further, it critically reviews current attempts to derive original speaker bias in high negation questions as well as the asymmetry between positive questions and low negation questions with respect to contextual evidence bias. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 10 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139229003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interjections at the Heart of Language","authors":"Mark Dingemanse","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031422-124743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031422-124743","url":null,"abstract":"Interjections, the words that come between sentences, are easily overlooked and usually treated as peripheral to the language sciences. This review surveys work from disparate disciplines that suggests an inversion of perspective: from interjections as marginal items to interjections at the heart of language. Around one out of every seven turns in conversation is an interjection, and the most common ones are not the involuntary grunts that typically feature in examples; instead, they form a small set of agile and adaptive interactional tools that streamline everyday language use. Continuers like mmhm help people co-construct complex interactional structures, repair initiators like huh? help people calibrate mutual understanding on the fly, and change-of-state tokens like oh display knowledge as it evolves in interaction. Interjections emerge as words that help us talk and think, scaffolding the complexity of language as we know it. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 10 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135589116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Efthymia C. Kapnoula, Mina Jevtović, James S. Magnuson
{"title":"Spoken Word Recognition: A Focus on Plasticity","authors":"Efthymia C. Kapnoula, Mina Jevtović, James S. Magnuson","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031422-113507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031422-113507","url":null,"abstract":"Psycholinguists define spoken word recognition (SWR) as, roughly, the processes intervening between speech perception and sentence processing, whereby a sequence of speech elements is mapped to a phonological wordform. After reviewing points of consensus and contention in SWR, we turn to the focus of this review: considering the limitations of theoretical views that implicitly assume an idealized (neurotypical, monolingual adult) and static perceiver. In contrast to this assumption, we review evidence that SWR is plastic throughout the life span and changes as a function of cognitive and sensory changes, modulated by the language(s) someone knows. In highlighting instances of plasticity at multiple timescales, we are confronted with the question of whether these effects reflect changes in content or in processes, and we consider the possibility that the two are inseparable. We close with a brief discussion of the challenges that plasticity poses for developing comprehensive theories of spoken language processing. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 10 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135808844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emily Lindsay-Smith, Matthew Baerman, Sacha Beniamine, Helen Sims-Williams, Erich R. Round
{"title":"Analogy in Inflection","authors":"Emily Lindsay-Smith, Matthew Baerman, Sacha Beniamine, Helen Sims-Williams, Erich R. Round","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030521-040935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030521-040935","url":null,"abstract":"Analogy has returned to prominence in the field of inflectional morphology as a basis for new explanations of inflectional productivity. Here we review the rising profile of analogy, identifying key theoretical and methodological developments, areas of success, and priorities for future work. In morphological theory, work within so-called abstractive approaches places analogy at the center of productive processes, though significant conceptual and technical details remain to be settled. The computational modeling of inflectional analogy has a rich and diverse history, and attention is now increasingly directed to understanding inflectional systems through their internal complexity and cross-linguistic diversity. A tension exists between the prima facie promise of analogy to lead to new explanations and its relative lack of theoretical articulation. We bring this to light as we examine questions regarding inflectional defectiveness and whether analogy is reducible to grammar optimization resulting from simplicity biases in learning and language use. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 10 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135568031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Types and Type Theories in Natural Language Analysis","authors":"Peter R. Sutton","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031422-113929","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031422-113929","url":null,"abstract":"This article reviews the set of possible paths from a semantics based on Simple Type Theories (STTs) toward one based on Rich Type Theories (RTTs) and the motivations behind the move from one to the other. The main elements of this review are threefold. First, it provides a systematic overview of different STTs, including options for what to include as members of the set of basic types, and whether to assume type constructors additional to the one for constructing functional types. Second, this review discusses the main differences between STTs and RTTs, namely, that in RTTs but not in STTs, types are part of the object language. That is, one can refer to and reason with and about types. In turn, this makes available an alternative account of propositions to the one assumed in semantics in the Frege–Church–Montague tradition: Instead of being characterized as sets of possible worlds, propositions can be treated themselves as types, that is, as structured semantic objects. Third and finally, this review provides an outline of some of the main applications of RTTs, including hyperintensionality, quantification, anaphora, polysemy, and modification. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 10 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136294499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Advances in Understanding Stuttering as a Disorder of Language Encoding","authors":"Nan Bernstein Ratner, Shelley B. Brundage","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030521-044754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030521-044754","url":null,"abstract":"We review accumulating evidence that implicates the language encoding and production system in children and adults who stutter. Stuttering is unique in its onset during the most dynamic stages of language acquisition, after apparently successful mastery of early language skills. We review older theories of stuttering that have given way to an understanding of stuttering's underlying bases in cortical and subcortical networks. Behavioral data suggest strong influences of language encoding demand on the frequency and location of stuttered events; psycholinguistic findings suggest atypical language processing in the absence of overt speech. We discuss the probable neuroanatomical and neurophysiological bases of these findings, with implications for therapeutic intervention. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 10 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136294494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Philippine Psycholinguistics","authors":"Jed Sam Pizarro-Guevara, Rowena Garcia","doi":"10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031522-102844","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031522-102844","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last decade, there has been a slow but steady accumulation of psycholinguistic research focusing on typologically diverse languages. In this review, we provide an overview of the psycholinguistic research on Philippine languages at the sentence level. We first discuss the grammatical features of these languages that figure prominently in existing research. We identify four linguistic domains that have received attention from language researchers and summarize the empirical terrain. We advance two claims that emerge across these different domains: ( a) The agent-first pressure plays a central role in many of the findings, and ( b) the generalization that the patient argument is the syntactically privileged argument cannot be reduced to frequency, but instead is an emergent phenomenon caused by the alignment of competing pressures toward an optimal candidate. We connect these language-specific claims to language-general theories of sentence processing. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 10 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.","PeriodicalId":45803,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135695874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}