The Mechanisms Of Syntax--semantics Interaction In Language Comprehension

There has been a long-standing controversy and dispute over the relationship between syntax and semantics in sentence comprehension and processing in the fields of generative linguistics and cognitive linguistics.Structuralism maintained that the meaning of a linguistic form is determined by the language system itself.The extra-linguistic factors,such as the world out there,how people interact with it,how they perceive and conceptualize it,do not impinge on the language system itself and language remains a self-contained,autonomous system,with its own structure,its own constitutive principles,and its own dynamics.“Autonomy of Syntax” goes through the five stages of Transformational-generative grammar,from Classical Theory,Standard Theory,Extended Standard Theory,the Theory of Government and Binding to Minimalist Program.The cognitive linguistic paradigm,however,maintains that language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty and ‘grammar is conceptualization'.Knowledge of language emerges from language use.They take many beyond-language factors into consideration when examining meanings.Although syntax--semantics theories in Indo-European frameworks have upgraded from generation to generation,these disputes were still in suspense,which embodied in three aspects including the relation of syntax and semantics in language comprehension,syntax-semantics interaction in the time course of language on-line processing as well as the factors influencing their relation and interaction.In view of this,this study conducted three experiments with Chinese specific and unique classifiers as the stimuli and Chinese native speakers as the participants,in the hope of examining these conflicting syntax-semantics theories and thus pushing the dense fog aside with cross-language evidences.To be specific,the study,in the hope of reflecting the conflicting theories concerning language generation through examining language comprehension and processing,was designed to deal with three main research questions.First,what is the relationship between syntax and semantics in language comprehension? Is syntax separate,autonomous,self-contained,or semantically constrained in language comprehension? Second,from the time course of processing stages,at which processing stage and on which linguistic level will syntax and semantics interact with each other and how? Are the syntactic information and the semantic information of language processed in a modular,interactive or concurrent way in language processing? Third,are the interaction of syntax and the semantics determined by the internal language system itself,or influenced by other external,beyond-language factors? How will the internal and external factors influence syntax-semantics relationship and interaction?Given all the aforementioned,the present study manipulated semantic and syntactic variables to explore the three research questions by combining the approach of psycholinguistic on-line eye-tracking experiments,acceptability judgment tasks and a retrospection interview task at Chinese classifiers(CL)--based determiner phrase(DP)level,TP level and relative clause-embedded CP level.To be specific,Experiment 1 focused on syntax-semantics interaction at DP Level.In this experiment,a 3(syntactic variable: part of speeches of the Chinese characters in the CL slot of "yi + CL + N")* 3(semantic variable: the semantic relatedness between the CL and N)ANOVAs for Repeated Measures design was adopted.Experiment 2 focused on the syntax-semantics interaction at TP level,in which a 2(syntactic order variable: "yi + CL + N" and "N + yi + CL")* 2(semantic variable: the abstractness of N)* 2(semantic variable: the abstractness of CL)ANOVAs for Repeated Measures design was adopted.Experiment 3 focused on syntax-semantics interaction at RC-embedded CP level,in which a 2(syntactic variable: relative clause types,i.e.subject-extraction relative clause--SRC and object-extraction relative clause--ORC)* 2(syntactic variable: the distribution of NCLs--Numeral-Classifier sequence,i.e.inner modifier nominal--IMN or outer modifier nominal--OMN)* 2(semantic variable: the abstractness of head noun,i.e.abstract noun--AN and concrete noun--CN)ANOVAs for Repeated Measures design was established.Taken together,the research findings could be summarized as follows.As for the relationship between syntax and semantics in language comprehension,this study confirmed the two-way interaction between syntax and semantics.At DP level,semantics played a significant role in dissolving the syntactic conflict and mismatch,implying the interdependence of syntax and semantics in construal.At TP level,the abstractness of the nouns in clauses,as well as the novelty of CLs both determined the syntactic representations of the construction they were in.At CP level,syntax of sentences was influenced by the semantics of the head nouns in RCs,and the influence was conversely embodied by the syntactic order.As for the time course when syntax and semantics interacted with each other,in the early processing stage,syntax and semantics of language were both activated and interacted with each other at DP level and CP level;in the late processing stage,syntax and semantics of language all interacted with each other at DP level,TP level and CP level.Accordingly,a stage-based extended Concurrent Model was constructed to account for syntax-semantics interaction in the time course of Chinese processing.As for the influence factors,seven factors were identified to influence syntax-semantics processing and interactions including factors in language internal system and external,beyond-language factors.The contributions of this study,at last,could be summarized as follows.First,research participants.The previous syntax-semantics interaction mechanism models were mainly drawn based on Indo-European languages,while this study designed Chinese stimuli for Chinese native speakers to evaluate the explanatory power of theories in Chinese context,and thus to explore a more comprehensive insight into the operation mechanism of language processors in human brain in real-time.Second,research framework.This study made a comprehensive exploration by conducting research at three linguistic levels,manipulating two kinds of variables to deal with three theoretical disputes concerning syntax and semantics,which will provide a ready-made framework to fertilize the research dimensions for the subsequent studies.Third,research methods.This study combined well-acknowledged syntactic acceptability task,the “temporally sensitive and ecologically valid” eye-tracking task as well as the retrospection interview task to sketch the interaction continuum of syntax and semantics in the processing stages at the level of milliseconds to enrich the mental/psychological reality of syntax-semantics theoretical accounts systematically and multi-dimensionally.Fourth,theoretical contributions.This study posed threat to the existing syntax-semantics theories including “the autonomy of syntax” and modular "syntax-first" processing models.New stage-based extended Concurrent Model was constructed concerning the syntax-semantics interaction and influence factors.Finally,ontological study for Chinese classifiers.This study also obtained some theoretical findings concerning Chinese classifiers.First,the Access Mechanism of CLs was influenced by the semantic factor.Second,the focus of NCL sequences,i.e."N + Num + CL",was not syntactically dependent as claimed by end-weight principle,but semantically constrained,i.e.determined by the truth-value semantics of NCLs.Third,the distribution preference of NCLs in RCs was not syntax-autonomous,but affected by the semantic factor.Finally,the derivational functions of NCLs,such as the categorization function,rhetorical function and prosody function,were identified.