Calendar

Lec # Topics Key DATES
1 Course Overview

Experimental methods: self-paced reading, eye-tracking, event-related potentials, on-line lexical decision, cross-modal priming, brain scanning

Modularity in Sentence Comprehension

Lexical and structural theories of ambiguity resolution in sentence comprehension

The effects of plausibility, context and lexical frequency in on-line processing
2 Resources and Sentence Complexity

The Complexity of Unambiguous Sentences

The Dependency Locality Theory
Short review paper 1 due
3 Working Memory and Sentence Comprehension

Guest Lecturer: Evelina Fedorenko
4 Resources and Ambiguity Resolution

The Serial / Parallel Question
5 Experience / Frequency and Ambiguity Resolution Short review paper 2 due
6 Symbolic Computational Approaches to Language Parsing

Parsing Strategies

Shift-reduce Parsing
7 Referential and Contextual Issues in Sentence Comprehension
8 Event-related Potentials (ERPs) and Other Brain-imaging Methods Investigating Sentence Comprehension Short paper 3 due
9 Representational Issues in Syntax: Behavioral evidence for the existence of empty categories

Behavioral Evidence that English is Context-free
10 Parallel Distributed Processing Models of Sentence Comprehension Short paper 4 due
11 Discourse Coherence

Guest Lecturer: Florian Wolf
12 Prosodic Structure and Sentence Comprehension Final paper due three days after lecture 12