Language Production

Eva M. FernándezQueens College & Graduate Center

CUNY

ABRALIN

21-FEB-05

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Second Week, Proposed Schedule

Segunda-feira: PRODUCTION

Terça-feira: PERCEPTION

Quarta-feira: METHODS

Quinta- e Sexta-feira: BILINGUALS

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General Domain of Psycholinguistics

How does linguistic competence develop?

How is linguistic competence used, in real time?

Linguistic performance:

language acquisition

language processing

production

perception

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Language Is…

SIGNAL MEANINGCOMPETENCE

&PERFORMANCE

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Language Is…

SIGNAL MEANING

grammar&

lexicon

PERCEPTION

PRODUCTION

logic,math…

knowledge about

the real world…

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A Model of Speech Production

MEANINGSEMANTICENCODING

LEXICAL RETRIEVAL&

STRUCTURAL ASSIGNMENT

APPLICATION OF PHONOLOGICAL& MORPHOLOGICAL RULES

PHONOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION

instructions to articulators&

production of speechSIGNAL

MEANINGlemma

FORMlexeme

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Evidence for this Model?The model seems to indicate there’s a time-course of processes in sentence production:

some come earlier, others later

Do people plan their speech before they speak? (despite the fact that they may not plan their ideas)Does this take long?

Speech error corporaInducing tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) statesEliciting production

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Two Landmark Historical Pieces

Al Kitaab (~12th Century), Arab scholar

Errors of the Populace

analysis of production errors, to demonstrate phenomena in diachronic language change

Sigmund Freud, Vienese psychoanalyst

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)

“lapsus linguae” (slips of the tongue), “lapsus calami” (slips of the pen), or in general, “Fehleistung” (= faulty action, “parapraxis”, “Freudian slip”)

repressed emotions cause errors (id over ego)

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Freudian Slips: ExamplesPresident of the Austrian Parliament says: “I take notice that a full quorum of members is present and herewith declare the sitting closed!”

Hotel boy knocks at bishop’s door, bishop says “Who is it?” and boy nervously replies: “The Lord, my boy!”

Member of the House of Commons refers to another honorable member as “Central Hell” (rather than “Hull”)

Professor says: “In the case of the female genital, in spite of the tempting… I mean, the attempted…”

Lady of well-determined character says: “My husband asked his doctor what sort of diet ought to be provided for him. But the doctor said he needed no special diet, he could eat and drink whatever I choose.”

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Malapropisms speech errorsMrs. Malaprop, a character in Sheridan’s The Rivals (1775)

using words “mal à propos” (= out of place)

“She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the nile.” (alligator)

“Comparisons are odorous.” (odious)

“He is the very pineapple of politeness.” (pinnacle)

“I want to remind you all that in order to fight and win the war, it requires an expenditure of money that is commiserate with keeping a promise to our troops to make sure that they’re well-paid, well-trained, well equipped” (comensurate)

“Even Napoleon had his Watergate!” (Nixon or Waterloo)

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Code-switches & borrowings speech errors

“Llegó el big chief.”

“Estaba training para pelear.”

“Vivo en ese building, el del rufo verde.”

“¿Vamos a lonchar?”

“Está flipando.”

“Quiere correr para mayor.”

“Se manchó la carpeta.”

CODE-SWITCHES

BORROWINGS, LOANS (ESTABLISHED, NONCE)

CALQUES, LOAN TRANSLATIONS

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Spoonerisms speech errors

Reverend Spooner, 19th Cent Oxford professor

“Work is the curse of the drinking classes!” (drink… working)

“… queer old dean…” (dear old queen, i.e., Queen Victoria)

“… noble tons of soil…” (sons of toil)

“You have tasted the whole worm.” (wasted… term)

“I have in my bosom a half-warmed fish” (half-formed wish)

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Why do People’s Tongues Slip?

Freud:

slips of the tongue, and other such phenomena: caused by repressed emotions

More modern approaches:

things go wrong at one or another phase as the representation is built, during language production

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Collecting Data on Speech Errors

Corpora, built up by annotated observed errorseven you can do this: write down what the speaker said and as much context as possible, as well as what the speaker meant to say

Sometimes, induced in lab:I say fuzzy, you say duck experiment“bias + target pairs” paradigm“flip Ns in NP” paradigm

dart boarddust binduck billbarn door (darn bore?)

una niña de los gatosunos gatos de la niña (unas gatas del niño? un gato de las niñas? …)

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Three Broad Categories

PERSEVERATION

ANTICIPATION

EXCHANGE

Useful hint: in the next three slides, check the direction of the arrow, which points to the location of the error.

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PERSEVERATION

an earlier segment/word perseveres…

I can’t cook worth a cam.

damn

c c

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ANTICIPATORY

intrusion of a segment/word that’s coming up, that’s being anticipated

taddle tennis leading list

leaders of Lebanon

paddle

t t

cedars

l L

reading

l l

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EXCHANGE

switch of two segments/words

hass or grash

you have tasted the whole worm

hash or grass

ss sh

wasted

t w

term

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What’s persevering, being anticipated, being exchanged?INTENDED STRING ERROR (whoops!)

pink stems tink spems

find wit fide wint

cedars of Lebanon cedars of lemadon

Terry and Julia derry and chulia [ ]

big and fat pig and vat

clear blue sky glear plue sky

pedestrian tebestrian

scatterbrain spattergrain

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Speech Errors: Constrained

Certain things just don’t happen. Why not?What constrains the behavior?

Impossible forms never created:no error ever violates phonotactic constraintsno error ever violates phonological / morphological rules

slips of the tongue tips of the slung * tlips of the sung

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More Constraints

Similar elements are always involved in substitutions and exchanges:

C’s & V’s don’t exchange, but C’s & C’s do, so do V’s & V’s

Content & Content words, yes; Content & Function words, no!

Large majority of errors occur within clauses:

This suggests speech is planned / organized in clause-sized bundles

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More Constraints

Errors respect syntactic structure

There’s an island on the small restaurant

(Intended: There’s a small restaurant on the island)

(Never: There’s island restaurant on the a small)

Exchange involved NPs, not just Ns

Resulting sentences are always grammatical!

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Details of When Rules Apply

Consider the following error:

You ordered up ending

(Intended: You ended up ordering)

(And never: You ordering up ended)

-ing morpheme didn’t move up with order: why not?

morphemes are perhaps part of the derivation, by themselves?

morphemes get “stranded”

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More Such Examples

We roasted a cook

(Intended: We cooked a roast)

If you give the nipple an infant…

(Intended: If you give the infant a nipple…)

You have a lot of churches in our minister.

(Intended: You have a lot of ministers in our church.)

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And Yet More Examples

Esas bocas no han salido de mi palabra.

(Intended: Esas palabras no han salido de mi boca.)

No quiero que crea.

(Intended: No creo que quiera.)

Las manecillas sin reloj…

(Intended: El reloj sin manecillas.)

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Stress (and Sentence-Level Prosody)Sentence-level stress is applied based on the structure of the clause (it’s not just something associated with a particular lexical item), so… stress won’t move with lexical exchange error:

When the PAPER hits the story…

Intended: When the STORY hits the paper…

(Never: When the paper hits the STORY…)

Stop beating your BRICK against a head wall

Intended: Stop beating your HEAD against a brick wall

(Never: Stop beating your brick against a HEAD wall)

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Speech Errors: ConstrainedErrors never generate impossible forms or ungrammatical sentences

Phonotactic constraints are always obeyed

Syntactic constraints are never violated / syntactic structure is never misconfigured

Errors typically involve similar elements (same lexical category, same segmental category)

Errors usually occur within a clause

Errors offer interesting data regarding the steps (“modules”) involved in planning speech

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Inducing Freudian SlipsMotley (1980): bias / target word-pair reading task

e.g.: dart board, dust bin, duck billbarn door darn bore

10-15% errors produced on target pairserrors more likely if:

results are real words: barn door darn bore (cf. born dancer dorn bancer)phonologically similar target words ( vowels): left hemisphere heft lemisphere (cf. right hemisphere hight remisphere)

manipulations of context: electrical / sexualshad bock bad shocktool kits …

LEXICAL RETRIEVAL

“Security is the essential roadblock to achieving the road map to peace.”

(GWB, Washington, DC, July 25, 2003)

“The law I sign today directs new funds and new focus to the task of collecting vital intelligence

on terrorist threats and on weapons of mass production.”

(GWB, Washington, DC, November 27, 2002)

Source: The Complete Bushisms, Jacob Weisberg, http://slate.msn.com/id/76886/

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Among the Many Words You Know…

How do you go about selecting the ones you wind up using in your sentences?

How is a lexical item retrieved?

FORM & MEANING… and FREQUENCY

SPEAKER v. HEARER

speaker uses meaning to retrieve words, but does form ever help choose?

uses form to retrieve words, but does meaning ever bias?

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How is the Lexicon Organized?

1. Frequency

2. Meaning: close meaning associates to a word are stored nearby

I hate… uh, I meant LOVE… dancing with you!I just feel like whipped cream and mushrooms

(strawberries)All I want is something for my shoulders

(elbows)

3. Sound / Form: words with similar form are also stored nearby

If you can find a gargle around the house… (garlic)

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How is the Lexicon Organized?In addition to frequency…

MEANINGlemma

FORMlexeme

…this restaurant hasn’t been awake very long(open)

Put the oven on at a very low speed.(temperature)

The picture of the whale from Jaws…(shark)

Don’t forget to wash your head tonight.(hair)

You’ll earn her eternal grapefruit.(gratitude)

I give you my undevoted attention.(undivided)

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How is the Lexicon Organized?Evidence: TOT States

TOT: Tip of the Tongue

You know the word you need, but you can’t quite get it…

But you always knowsomething about it:

number of syllables

initial or final sounds/letters

location of primary stress

What’s the item on the right?

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A Model of Speech Production

MEANINGSEMANTICENCODING

LEXICAL RETRIEVAL&

STRUCTURAL ASSIGNMENT

APPLICATION OF PHONOLOGICAL& MORPHOLOGICAL RULES

PHONOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION

instructions to articulators&

production of speechSIGNAL

MEANINGlemma

FORMlexeme

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What about features?

Null hypothesis: retrieval and assignment of inflections is the same for all sorts of inflectional features

Gender and number agreement errors in Spanish

Su rendimiento en esta prueba no está asociada con...

Es el que más pinto… más pinta de chino tiene.

Lleva once años casados con…

A tan sólo unos centenares de metro…

Igoa, J. M., García-Albea, J. E., & Sánchez-Casas, R. (1999). Gender-number dissociations in sentence production in Spanish. Rivista di Linguistica, 11.1, 163-196.

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Agreement in Spanish“person” and “number” in agreement relations between a verb and its subject

La niña ha comido pan.Las niñas han comido pan.

“gender” and “number” in agreement relations between a noun and (i) the constituents within the NP or (ii) an adjunct predicate of the NP

La profesora alemanaLas profesoras alemanas

El niño jugaba contento.Los niños jugaban contentos.

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Levels of Representation

morphological (inflectional suffixes):

-a (gender)

-s (number)

syntactic

gender/number marking of “agreeing” constituents

conceptual/semantic:

sex (gender)

numerosity / notional number (number)

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A Difference in RepresentationGENDER: can be determined by the semantics of words, or by their morphology

mujer / hombre

silla / zapato

it must be lexically specified (for nouns)!

it is arbitrary

NUMBER: not predictable from the semantics of phrases, or of words

Abunda el polvo en mi apartamento.

La policía llegó.

Todo el mundo es bueno.

it isn’t lexically specified!

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A Typology for Spanish GenderElías-Cintrón (1994)

Type Example Mrph Synt Sem

Ael vecino / la vecina

Bel estudiante /la estudiante

C la víctima

Del puerto /

la puerta

D: “false pair”

A/B: differ in biological sex

= variable feature

ANIMATE

INANIMATE

A: only type where gender is derived by rule; elsewhere, it’s lexical

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A Typology for Spanish NumberElías-Cintrón (1994)

Type Example Mrph Synt Sem

Wel vecino / los vecinos

Xel aguafiestas /los aguafiestas

Y la policía

Z nadie

= variable feature

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Gender & Number: Same Processing Loci?

Null hypothesis: retrieval and assignment of inflections is the same for all sorts of inflectional features

Dissociation hypothesis: gender features are retrieved and assigned from lemmas, while number features are independently assigned to lemmas and later to word forms through phrase structure building operations

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Corpus Analysis Data

725 errors involving gender and number (from Corpus of Spanish Slips of the Tongue, Del Viso et al., 1987)

SUBSTITUTIONS

EXCHANGES

MOVEMENT ERRORS WITH “STRANDING”

NONCONTEXTUAL ERRORS

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SubstitutionsGender

Feminine for masculineSu rendimiento en esta prueba no está asociada con…

Masculine for feminineEs el que más pinto de chino tiene

NumberPlural for singular

Lleva once años casados con…Singular for plural

A tan sólo unos centenares de metro…

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Exchanges

Gender

He cantado líneo y binga.(línea y bingo)

Number

Y pagamos a media las cuotas.(a medias la cuota)

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Movement Errors with Stranding

Gender

Una cuera de suelo(Una suela de cuero)

Number

Esas bocas no han salido de mi palabra.(Esas palabras no han salido de mi boca.)

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Noncontextual ErrorsForm-based word substitutions

Hay dos apóstoles. (epístolas)

Meaning-based word substitutionsToma sólo tres tenedores. (cucharadas)

Context-based word substitutionsEl estómago de las uñas. (rumiantes)

Word blendsHubo un confrontamiento.

(confrontación/enfrentamiento)

also form-based, no?

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Corpus Analysis: Results

Gender Number Total

Substitutions

F(M) 30

M(F) 24

“-e” 4

P(S) 32

S(P) 9

99

Exchanges12

(2 with Ns)

22

(13 with Ns)

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Movement errors

with stranding40 56 131

Noncontextual Errors (next page) 460

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Corpus Analysis: Results

Gender Number Neither

Form-based substitutions

4 0 96

Meaning-based substitutions

17 2 81

Context-based substitutions

17 6 77

Blends 26 0 74

Noncontextual Errors (lexical errors, par excellence)

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Elicited Production ExperimentTo induce stranding of gender / number inflections

Three manipulations:

mismatch, types of gender, plausibility

Procedure:

una niña de los gatos

unos gatos de la niña (no stranding)

unas gatas del niño (gender stranding)

un gato de las niñas (number stranding)

una gata de los niños (gender + number)

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Three ManipulationsMISMATCH GDR NMBRun hermano del abogado un hermano de la abogada un hermano de los abogados un hermano de las abogadas

GENDER TYPE MRPH SYNT SEMA: el niño / la niña B: el amante / la amante D: el libro / la libra

PLAUSIBILITYPlausible: una prima de la camareraImplausible: una camarera de la prima

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Elicited Production: Results

Overall Stranding (%)

0

25

50

75

100

TotalStranding

NoStranding

PartialStranding

Misc.Errors

Gender

Number

<

>

=

=

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Elicited Production: Results

Gender Stranding (Frequencies)

0

40

80

120

160

200

A B D

Gender Type

Number Stranding (Frequencies)

0

40

80

120

160

200

A B D

Gender Type

Total Stranding

No Stranding

B < A < D AB

< D

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Elicited Production: Results

Partial Stranding (Frequencies)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

A B D

Gender Type

Gender

Number

Examples (and distribution of errors):

%un maestro de la estudiante

78 un estudiante del maestro (N1) or22 una estudiante de la maestra (N2)

unas monas de la rama 73 unas ramas de las monas (N1) or27 una rama del mono (N2)

=>

<