Transcript SarahVirtualPresentation 826KB Oct 27 2009 08:42:33 PM

Verb Activation through Priming at
the Syntax-Semantics Interface
SARAH MCCULLEY
LING 620
Research Area
 Psycholinguistics
 Cognitive Science
 Syntax-Semantics Interface
Aim/Justification
 Beth Levin and Malka Rappaport Hovav propose a
lexicalist/projectionist framework to deal with verbal
polysemy. Adoption of such a framework has
implications for the organization of the lexicon.
 Any proposed theoretical framework should also be
plausible at the psychological level.
 The majority of priming studies test for semantic
activation, and there are many that test for phonological,
orthographic, or morphological activation. Very few
studies test for syntactic activation, and none for
activation at the level of the syntax-semantics interface.
References
1. Aitchison, J. (2003). Words in the mind: An introduction to the mental
lexicon. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
2. Goldinger, S., Luce, P. & Pisoni, D. (1989). Priming lexical neighbors of
spoken words: Effects of competition and inhibition. Journal of Memory
and Language,28, 501-518.
3. Levin, B. (1993). English verb classes and alternations: A preliminary
investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4. Rappaport-Hovav, M. & Levin, B. (1998). Building verb meanings. In
M. Butts & W. Geuder (Eds.) The projection of Arguments (97-143).
Stanford: CSLI Publications.
5. Rastle, K., Davis, M., Marslen-Wilson, W., & Tyler, L. (2000).
Morphological and semantic effects in visual word recognition: A timecourse study. Language and Cognitive Processes, 15 (4/5), 507-537.
Research Questions
 Does priming of a verb that belongs particular verb
class (e.g., manner of motion, surface contact
through motion) produce an effect in the length of
time it takes the participant to recognize the target
verb (of the same class)?
 Is the amount of time it takes the participant to
recognize the target verb of the same category faster
than the time it takes the participant to recognize a
target verb that is unrelated semantically,
syntactically, or both?
Methodology
 Participants will be Ohio University students who are
native speakers of English between the ages of 18-23.
 Participants will be recruited from linguistics and
philosophy classes at OU.
 A computer program will be developed using Eprime or similar software that will provide the prime,
and record the duration of time it takes the
participant
Procedure
 Participants will be seated at a computer for the
duration of the study.
 They will be primed with a verb (for a certain
duration of time).
 Then they will be asked to fill in the target verb as
quickly as they can, as letters of the target will be
filled in, one by one.
 All data will be recorded by the computer program.
Data Type and Analysis
 The data will be quantitative in nature.
 The data will be statistically analyzed.
Expected Findings
 I expect to find activation of verbs by semantic
content.
 I do not know whether the common syntactic
element between the prime and the target will
further shorten the time it takes the participant to
recognize the target verb.
Anticipated Problems/Limitations
 It will be difficult to find verb that share semantic
content, but are not members of the same verb
class/related syntactically.
 Therefore, the choice of the verbs used in the study
must be chosen extremely carefully in order to test
for evidence for Levin and Rappaport-Hovav’s
proposed framework and not just for semantic
content only.