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