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Respecting Relations: Memory Access and Antecedent Retrieval in Incremental Sentence Processing

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Respecting Relations: Memory Access and Antecedent Retrieval in Incremental Sentence Processing ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: RESPECTING RELATIONS: MEMORY ACCESS AND ANTECEDENT RETRIEVAL IN INCREMENTAL SENTENCE PROCESSING Dave W. Kush, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Professor Colin Phillips Department of Linguistics This dissertation uses the processing of anaphoric relations to probe how linguistic information is encoded in and retrieved from memory during real-time sentence com- prehension. More specifically, the dissertation attempts to resolve a tension between the demands of a linguistic processor implemented in a general-purpose cognitive architec- ture and the demands of abstract grammatical constraints that govern language use. The source of the tension is the role that abstract configurational relations (such as c-command, Reinhart 1983) play in constraining computations. Anaphoric dependencies are governed by formal grammatical constraints stated in terms of relations. For example, Binding Principle A (Chomsky 1981) requires that antecedents for local anaphors (like the English reciprocal each other) bear the c-command relation to those anaphors. In incremental sentence processing, antecedents of anaphors must be retrieved from memory. Recent research has motivated a model of processing that exploits a cue-based, associative retrieval process in content-addressable memory (e.g. Lewis, Vasishth & Van Dyke 2006) in which relations such as c-command are difficult to use as cues for retrieval. As such, the c-command constraints of formal grammars are predicted to be poorly implemented by the retrieval mechanism. I examine retrieval’s sensitivity to three constraints on anaphoric dependencies: Principle A (via Hindi local reciprocal licensing), the Scope Constraint on bound-variable pronoun licensing (often stated as a c-command constraint, though see Barker 2012), and Crossover constraints on pronominal binding (Postal 1971, Wasow 1972). The data suggest that retrieval exhibits fidelity to the constraints: structurally inaccessible NPs that match an anaphoric element in morphological features do not interfere with the retrieval of an antecedent in most cases considered. In spite of this alignment, I argue that retrieval’s apparent sensitivity to c-command constraints need not motivate a memory access procedure that makes direct reference to c-command relations. Instead, proxy features and general parsing operations conspire to mimic the extension of a system that respects c-command constraints. These strategies provide a robust approximation of grammatical performance while remaining within the confines of a independently- motivated general-purpose cognitive architecture. RESPECTING RELATIONS: MEMORY ACCESS AND ANTECEDENT RETRIEVAL IN INCREMENTAL SENTENCE PROCESSING by Dave W. Kush Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Advisory Committee: Professor Colin Phillips, Chair/Advisor Professor Norbert Hornstein Professor Michael Israel Professor Ellen Lau Professor Jeffrey Lidz, Co-Advisor c Copyright by Dave W. Kush 2013 Acknowledgments Thank you to everyone who has known me well and supported me anyway. In particular: Colin Phillips, Jeff Lidz, and Norbert Hornstein, the three of whom have all shouldered the responsibility of advising me. Colin has played an instrumental role in getting me in shape intellectually and physically. The standards he sets are exacting, but trying to meet them has forced me to grow. Jeff has provided encouragement whenever I needed it (no mean feat). He has had the patience to help me coax latent insights from jumbled messes of thought, as well as the decency to tell me when a half-baked idea would go nowhere. His impeccable binding judgments have also come in handy more than once. Norbert rounds out the troika. Norbert has taught me the value of ‘productive BS’ and of pursuing interesting ideas even when they’re sure to be wrong. In addition to being a de facto advisor, Norbert’s been a father figure of sorts, dispensing life/book advice, providing food, and even letting us have the car when he was out of town. Thanks also goes to the other members of my committee: To Ellen Lau, for listening to me ramble and providing a great example of an approachable, positive, and serious scientist. To Michael Israel, for agreeing to read this dissertation and for employing me sporadically in my first few years of grad school. Other members of the department deserve acknowledgment, too: Tonia Bleam has always let me drop in on her unannounced to gripe talk. Valentine Hac- quard has not held the torturous process of reading my many drafts against me. Alexander Williams has always been gracious enough to treat me like an equal. Howard Lasnik, Paul Pietroski, and Bill Idsardi have all played their part in making me a clearer thinker. Thanks to Andrea Zukowski for support inside the department and along Sideling Hill. Thanks to Dave Baggett for funding my first year at Maryland. The department would be a very different place without the Baggett fellowship.1 My peers at Maryland were a frighteningly intelligent, capable, and assiduous bunch that got me to step my game up. In addition to being superstars, they’re all pretty decent people, too. The members of my unofficial first class, Pedro Alcocer, Brian Dillon, Alex Drummond, Annie Gagliardi, and Shannon Hoerner, all have had an immense impact on my life. Pedro has been a valued friend. I envy his ability to confidently pursue his interests, as well as his PRs on fitocracy. Brian Dillon paved the way for a lot of the research contained here, and, more importantly, was the glue that held us together for so long. Alex Drummond has made me laugh harder than almost anyone I’ve ever known (often intentionally!) and has been generous enough to make me a coauthor on papers. Shannon, the last of the (not that) old guard, has my gratitude for sticking it out with me 1The research reported in this dissertation was supported by an NSF IGERT Grant #DGE-0801465 to the University of Maryland, and an NSF Grant #BCS-0848554 to Colin Phillips. ii every step of the full six years (and not running screaming after that completely ill-advised first experiment). Rest assured, the padrino will make it out to Utah. Wing Yee Chow, Ewan Dunbar, Michael¨ Gagnon, Brad Larson, Chris LaTerza, Shevaun Lewis, Terje Lohndal — my official classmates — are no slouches either. Brad, who I am not ashamed to say I begged to come to Maryland, has played the easy-going West-coast counterpoint to my East-coast neuroticism for 5 years. Ewan deserves credit for getting me to think bigger, while still sweating the details (also for reawakening my unabashed love for DS9). Shevaun ensured I didn’t act indecorously in Europe (in contrast to Ewan and Brad). She has also never failed in providing everything from gourmet eats, vigorous counter-argument, and patience. Terje provided good discussion, insider information, and innumerable Norwegian judgments. Wing Yee deserves thanks for the good cheer, playing the good cop to Shevaun’s bad cop in arguments, and for all the Assam tea she (un)knowingly provided me. More thanks: To my fellow flag hag, Nora Oppenheim, for being a great co-blogger and friend. To Elika Bergelson, for helping me develop a work ethic and consistently producing entertaining speech errors. To Dan Parker, for rapping about ACT-R and being a frequent conference bunkmate. To Sol Lago, for finally coming around. To Dustin Alfonso Chacon, Kate Harrigan, Alexis Wellwood, and Aaron Steven White for ensuring I never wanted for an interesting conversation. To other, elder, linguists who have contributed an idea, a drink, or their friendship over the last six years: Rajesh Bhatt, Tim Hunter, Tim Hawes, John Hale, Akira Omaki, Bridget Samuels, Matthias Scharinger, Jon Sprouse, Masaya Yoshida, and Matt Wagers. To Sam Epstein and Elaine McNulty to for getting me into syntax. To Karthick, Pritha Chandra, Ayesha Kidwai, Usha Udaar, and members of the student bodies at IIT, Delhi and JNU for help with the Hindi experiment. The following people deserve special thanks for not being linguists: AJ Annunziata, Edison Barrios (who narrowly qualifies as a non-linguist), Rob Bedoya, Se- bastian ‘Stump Beefknob’ Benthall, Courtney Blanchard, Kate Boulton, Romina Casadei, Katy Gorman, Jorge Guzman, Leila Mays, Alex Mazarredo, Chris Mesaros, Maggie Mesaros, Ric Meyer, Eric Naing, Julian Vu (my House-mate), and Donna Ward. Lily Mendelson deserves special thanks for her kindness and compassion, as well as her efforts to make me a better person. Finally, thanks to my family, who only grow more important to me with time. To Aunt Roz, Uncle Rick and Dan (Dan), Heather, Manu, Tanu, Ambrish Chacha. To Aunt Irene, for keeping me up to date on the New Yorker and sending the final care-package of tea that kept me and my office-mates blissfully buzzed while dissertating. To Emily Rosenberg, for being my sister. To Catherine Roosevelt, for growing up with me. To Molly, who brings out my best, endures my worst, and whose ability to live with purpose still amazes me. To my father, who came to terms with my being the wrong kind of doctor and finally got the hang of being an informant. And to my mother, whose unconditional support I have never once needed to be reminded of (though that hasn’t stopped her from doing so). iii Table of Contents List of Tables ix List of Figures x 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Starting Out . 1 1.1.1 The Challenge . 7 1.2 Outline of the Thesis . 12 1.2.1 Chapter 2: Cue-Based Retrieval and Relations . 12 1.2.2 Chapter 3: Local Anaphor Licensing . 13 1.2.3 Chapter 4: The LOCAL Feature . 14 1.2.4 Chapter 5: Crossover and Principle C . 14 1.2.5 Chapter 6: Scope Constraints .
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