Sentence Production I. Introduction
Download 34.19 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- A.Why is sentence production interesting
- B.Processes of Speech Production (after Levelt 1989)
- 3.Articulation / Execution
- 1.Normal speech Speech errors Dysfluencies 2.‘Lab speech’
- B.Perseveration A unit occurs both in the right place and later in the utterance
- 1.Tip-of-the-tongue state (TOT)
- B.Pauses for sentence planning
- A.What evidence must models of syntactic planning account for
- B.Garrett’s model of syntactic planning
- Functional Level
- Positional Level
- Articulatory Instructions
- A.What speech evidence must a model of lexicalisation account for
- Figure 2 One stage of lexicalisation or two
- VI.Modifications to models of syntactic planning and lexicalisation
(Introduction to) Language History and Use – Psycholinguistics Sentence Production Rachael-Anne Knight
Sentence ProductionI.IntroductionThis lecture covers how a spoken sentence is produced from the formation of an idea in the speaker’s mind to the moment before it is articulated. We will discuss the processes involved and the methods by which these can be examined. A.Why is sentence production interesting?The storage space of the brain is finite. This means that it cannot store the infinite number of sentences that we may ever need to produce. From this it follows that we must somehow construct sentences from smaller parts or units before we are able to say them. The main issues then concern the processes by which units come to be selected and then combined in a particular order. B.Processes of Speech Production (after Levelt 1989)
Figure 1 The Processes of Speech Production The three main areas of speech production are: 1.ConceptualisationThe speaker must decide on the message to be conveyed. Very little is known about this stage. The end point is a stage at which the message itself has been decided but it has no linguistic form. It is also called the preverbal message or the message level of representation. This stage is often represented by a thought bubble. 2.FormulationThe speaker must convert their message into a linguistic form. This stage involves
3.Articulation / ExecutionThe speaker must plan the motor movements needed to convey the message. C.Where does our evidence come from?It’s hard to study speech production as it’s very difficult to get inside someone’s head as they plan a sentence. 1.Normal speech
2.‘Lab speech’
3.Non-normal speech
II.Speech Errors (Slips of the tongue)These are the types of errors that are relatively common in normal speech production. Errors are categorised by the mechanism and the unit involved in the error. A.DeletionA unit is missed out from the intended target 1. The chimney catches fire The chimney catch fire (affix deletion) 2. Background lighting Backgound lighting (phoneme deletion)
B.PerseverationA unit occurs both in the right place and later in the utterance 3. A phonological rule A phonological fool (phoneme /f/) C.AnticipationA unit occurs in the right place and earlier in the utterance 4. A reading list A leading list (phoneme /l/ anticipation) D.ExchangeTwo units are swapped over 5. Do you feel really bad Do you reel feally bad (phoneme/onset exchange) 6. Guess whose name came to mind Guess whose mind came to name (word exchange) 7. I sampled some randomly I randomed some samply (morpheme exchange) E.BlendTwo units are combined 8. The children / young of today The chung of today (word blend) 9. Miss you very much / a great deal Miss you a very much (phrase blend)
F.SubstitutionA word is substituted for a different word 10. Give me a spoon Give me a fork 11. I think they are equivalent I think they are equivocal 12. Get me the catalogue Get me the calender G.Cognitive IntrusionsUnits from outside the message level are inserted into the utterance 13. I’ve read all my library books I’ve eaten all my library books (produced when the speaker was hungry) 14. Get out of the car Get out of the clark (produced when the speaker was looking at a shop called Clark’s)
III.Hesitation analysisWe make lots of pauses while we speak. Sometimes these pauses are periods of silence (unfilled pauses) or they may contain repetitions or items such as ‘umm’ or ‘I mean’ (filled pauses). A.Pauses before words
1.Tip-of-the-tongue state (TOT)This state is an extreme version of a microplanning pause. The speaker knows they know what the word is (they have a ‘feeling of knowing’) and can provide semantic information about it but cannot remember the exact phonological form. Speakers may know some information about the phonological form (such as first sound or number of syllables) or produce interlopers (near phonological neighbours). B.Pauses for sentence planning
IV.Syntactic PlanningWhen we speak we must put our words in a certain order and add grammatical elements to our utterance. A.What evidence must models of syntactic planning account for?Look at the famous error below 15. A weekend for 1maniacs A maniac for 1weekends Three things to note a. The position of stress was unchanged – the primary stress and the nuclear accent remained on the final word. Suggests that prosody is generated independently of the words themselves. b. The plural morpheme Another indication that content and function words are processed differently is that they show different patterns of exchange errors. Word exchanges aren’t constrained by distance whereas sound exchanges are not. Furthermore, words tend to exchange with others of the same syntactic class. c. The plural morpheme is pronounced as /z/. This is appropriate for the phonological environment of ‘weekend’ rather than ‘maniac’. We say it shows phonological accommodation to the environment Suggests that the phonological form of function words is specified after that of content words. B.Garrett’s model of syntactic planningGarrett proposed a model of syntactic planning based primarily on data from speech errors like the ones above. 
1.Main features of Garrett’s model
Message Level 
Form abstract semantic specification and assign syntactic functions
|
Verb = 
Object = 
