PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Language Production:A General Model

From thought to speech

Jane threw the ball to Bill

What do speech errors suggest? Productivity Advanced planning

From thought to speech Propositions to be communicatedMessage level

Morphemic level

Syntactic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

Selection and organization of lexical items

Morphologically complex words are constructed

Sound structure of each word is built

From thought to speech Propositions to be communicatedMessage level

Syntactic level

Morphemic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

Not a lot known about this step Typically thought to be shared with

comprehension processes, semantic networks, situational models, etc.

From thought to speech Grammatical class constraint

Most substitutions, exchanges, and blends involve words of the same grammatical class

Slots and frames A syntactic framework is constructed, and

then lexical items are inserted into the slots

Message level

Syntactic level

Morphemic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

From thought to speech

It was such a happy moment when Ross

kissed Rachel…

Ross

Em

ily

Rachel

From thought to speech

… Oops! I mean “kissed Emily.”

Ross

Em

ily

Rachel

From thought to speech

LEXICON

•ROSS

•KISS

•EMILY

•RACHEL

SYNTACTIC FRAME

NP

S

VP

V(past) NN

Spreading activation

From thought to speech

LEXICON

•ROSS

•KISS

•EMILY

•RACHEL

SYNTACTIC FRAME

NP

S

VP

V(past) NN

Grammatical class constraint:

If the word isn’t the right grammatical class, it won’t “fit” into the slot.

From thought to speech Grammatical class constraint

Most substitutions, exchanges, and blends involve words of the same grammatical class

Slots and frames Other evidence

Syntactic priming

Message level

Syntactic level

Morphemic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

Hear and repeat a sentence

Describe the picture

Bock (1986): syntactic persistance tested by picture naming

Syntactic priming

a: The ghost sold the werewolf a flowerb: The ghost sold a flower to the werewolf

Bock (1986): syntactic persistance tested by picture naming

Syntactic priming

b: The girl gave the flowers to the teacher

a: The girl gave the teacher the flowers

Syntactic priming In real life, syntactic priming seems to

occur as well Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland (2000):

Speakers tend to reuse syntactic constructions of other speakers

Potter & Lombardi (1998): Speakers tend to reuse syntactic constructions of

just read materials

From thought to speech

The inflection stayed in the same location, the stems moved

Inflections tend to stay in their proper place

Do not typically see errors like

The beeing are buzzesThe bees are buzzing

Message level

Syntactic level

Morphemic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

Stranding errors

I liked he would hope you

I hoped he would like you

From thought to speech

Closed class items very rare in exchanges or substitutions

Two possibilities Part of syntactic frame High frequency, so lots of practice,

easily selected, etc.

Message level

Syntactic level

Morphemic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

Stranding errors

From thought to speech

Message level

Syntactic level

Morphemic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

Consonant vowel regularity Consonants slip with other

consonants, vowels with vowels, but rarely do consonants slip with vowels

The implication is that vowels and consonants represent different kinds of units in phonological planning

From thought to speech

Message level

Syntactic level

Morphemic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

Consonant vowel regularity Frame and slots in syllables

Similar to the slots and frames we discussed with syntax

From thought to speech

LEXICON

•/d/, C

•/g/, C

• , VOnset

Word

Rhyme

V CC

PHONOLOGICAL FRAME

Syllable

From thought to speech

Message level

Syntactic level

Morphemic level

Phonemic level

Articulation

Consonant vowel regularity Frame and slots in syllables Evidence for the separation of

meaning and sound Tip of the tongue Picture-word interference

Eliciting tips-of-the-tongue

“The rhythm of the lost word may be there without the sound to clothe it; or the evanescent sense of something which is the initial vowel or consonant may mock us fitfully, without growing more distinct.” (James, 1890, p. 251)

Tip-of-the-tongue

Low-frequency words (e.g., apse, nepotism, sampan), prompted by brief definitions.

On 8.5% of trials, tip-of-the-tongue state ensued:

Had to guess: word's first or last letters the number of syllables it contained which syllable was stressed

Brown & McNeill (1966)

Tip-of-the-tongue

Total of 360 TOT states: 233 ="positive TOTs" (subject was thinking of target

word, and produced scorable data 127 = "negative TOTs" (subject was thinking of other

word, but could not recall it) 224 similar-sound TOTs (e.g., Saipan for sampan)

48% had the same number of syllables as the target 95 similar-meaning TOTs (e.g., houseboat for

sampan). 20% had same number of syllables as target. 

Tip-of-the-tongue Brown & McNeill (1966)

Similar words come to mind about half the time but how much is just guessing?

First letter: correct 50-71% of time (vs. 10% by chance) First sound: 36% of time (vs. 6% by chance)

Tip-of-the-tongue

Results suggest a basic split between semantics/syntax and phonology: People can access meaning and grammar

but not pronunciation

Tip-of-the-tongue

Semantics Syntax

grammatical category (“part of speech”) e.g. noun, verb, adjective

Gender e.g. le chien, la vache; le camion, la voiture

Number e.g. dog vs. dogs; trousers vs. shirt

Count/mass status e.g. oats vs. flour

Tip-of-the-tongue

Vigliocco et al. (1997) Subjects presented with word definitions

Gender was always arbitrary If unable to retrieve word, they answered

How well do you think you know the word? Guess the gender Guess the number of syllables Guess as many letters and positions as possible Report any word that comes to mind

Then presented with target word Do you know this word? Is this the word you were thinking of?

Tip-of-the-tongue

Vigliocco et al (1997)

Scoring + TOT

Both reported some correct information in questionnaire

And said yes to recognition question - TOT

Otherwise

Vigliocco et al. (1997)

Vigliocco et al (1997)

Results + TOT: 84% correct gender guess - TOT: 53% correct gender guess

chance level Conclusion

Subjects often know grammatical gender information even when they have no phonological information

Supports split between syntax and phonology in production

Vigliocco et al. (1997)

Central questions How many levels are there? What is the scope of planning? Are the stages discrete or cascading? Is there feedback in lexicalization:

interactive or not?

conceptual level

Animal

Quakes

Jumpslemma level frog

noun

male

+s

lexeme level /frog/

/f/r/o/g/

stress

syllables

How many levels?

conceptual level

lemma level frog

lexeme level /frog/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

How many levels?

Levelt et al. (1991): EARLY PRIMING: KANGEROO => FROG

Temporal evidence for the 2-stage modelstage 1: conceptual => lemma

conceptual level

Animal

Quakes

Jumpslemma level frog

noun

male

+s

Levelt et al. (1991): LATE PRIMING: FROCK => FROG

Animal

Quakes

Jumpslemma level frog

noun

male

+s

lexeme level /frog/

/f/r/o/g/

stress

syllables

Temporal evidence for the 2-stage modelstage 1: conceptual => lemma

b: Are the stages discrete or cascading?

conceptual level

lemma level

lexeme level/frog/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

kangeroograsshopper

/frog/

/grasshopper/

/kangeroo/??

b: Discrete vs. cascading put to the test: the mediated priming paradigm

lemma level

sheep

lexeme level /sheep/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

goat

Does sheep prime goal?

/goat/

/goal/ /sheet/

?

b: The mediated priming paradigm: Does sheep prime goal?

naming: 600 ms

150 ms 125 ms 325 msV Lem Lex sheep

goal or goat or sheet or mukl: button yes/no-rt

a: Discrete vs. cascading put to the test: the mediated priming paradigm

lemma level

sheep

lexeme level/sheep/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

goat

/goat/

/goal/ /sheet/

Does sheep prime goal? Cascaders would say yes

a: Discrete vs. cascading put to the test: the mediated priming paradigm

lemma level

sheep

lexeme level/sheep/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

goat

/goat/

/goal/ /sheet/

Does sheep prime goal? Discreters would say no

a: Discrete vs. cascading put to the test: the mediated priming paradigm

lemma level

sheep

lexeme level/frog/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

goat

Levelt (1991): mediated priming doesn’t work

/goat/

/goal/ /frock/

b: The mediated priming paradigm: Does sheep prime goal?

150 ms 125 ms 325 msV Lem Lex sheep

goal or goat or sheet or mukl: button yes/no-rt

GOAT SHEET

GOAL

a: Discrete vs. cascading put to the test: the mediated priming paradigm

lemma level

couch

lexeme level/couch/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

sofa

/sofa/

/soda/

Peterson & Savoy (1998): Yes it does: couch primes soda via sofa

sheep – goat: categorical associates

sofa – couch: near synonyms

c: Are the stages interactive? (Levelt, no)

conceptual level

lemma level frog

lexeme level /frog/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

c: Are the stages interactive? (Dell, Laine, yes)

conceptual level

lemma level frog

lexeme level /frog/

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

From thought to speech How does a mental concept get turned into a spoken utterance? Levelt, 1989, 4 stages of production:

1 Conceptualising: we conceptualise what we wish to communicate (“mentalese”).

2 Formulating: we formulate what we want to say into a linguistic plan.– Lexicalisation

– Lemma Selection– Lexeme (or Phonological Form) Selection

– Syntactic Planning3 Articulating: we execute the plan through muscles in the vocal tract.4 Self-monitoring: we monitor our speech to assess whether it is what we

intended to say, and how we intended to say it.

Models of production As in comprehension, there are serial

(modular) and interactive models Serial models - Garrett, Levelt et al. Interactive models - Stemberger, Dell

Levelt’s monitoring stage (originally proposed by Baars) can explain much of the data that is said to favour interaction between earlier levels

An model of sentence production Three broad stages:

Conceptualisation deciding on the message (= meaning to

express)

Formulation turning the message into linguistic

representations Grammatical encoding (finding words and

putting them together) Phonological encoding (finding sounds and

putting them together)

Articulation speaking (or writing or signing)

Message

Lexicon

Grammatical

Form

Articulation

FunctionalProcessing

PositionalProcessing

An model of sentence production Experimental investigations of some of these

issues Time course - cascading vs serial

Picture word interference Separation of syntax and semantics

Subject verb agreement Abstract syntax vs surface form

Syntactic priming