Real-time Analysis of the comprehension process of sentences with empty subjects

研究我们如何“理解”一个给定的表达是基本问题之一。我们试图通过对句子加工的研究来阐明“理解”的过程是一个认知过程。首先，我们考虑了一些基于语言学理论的加工模型。我们调查的实际目标是理解日语中带有空主语（或缺失主语）的句子的过程。我们特别感兴趣的是“实时”检测句子处理。我们用计算合成的句子做了一个实验。任务是决定是-否。此外，我们还考察了句子中主宾互换顺序的效果。在这两个顺序中，我们观察到“主体偏好”现象。这种效应随着时间的推移而消失。实验结果表明，句子加工机制首先以“自上而下”的过程运行，然后以“自下而上”的过程运行。由此，我们获得了关于理解句子中“空”元素的新知识。虽然有一些关于日语句法分析的研究工作，但这种语言学家和心理学家的合作研究并不多见。上述发现是双方共同研究的部分成果。今后，这种联合研发的新产品还会不断增加。

It is one of the fundamental issues to investigate how we "understand" a given expression. We try to elucidate the process of "understanding" as a cognitive process through the study of sentence processing.First, we consider some processing models based on linguistic theory. The actual target of our investigation was the process of understanding sentences with empty subjects (or, missing subjects) in Japanese. Particularly, we are interested in detecting the sentence processing in "real-time". We conducted an experiment using computationally synthesized sentences. The task was Yes-No decision. Furthermore, we examined the effect of exchanging the order of the subject and object in the sentence. In both orders, we observed a "subject preference" phenomena. This effect disappears in the course of time. This experimental findings suggest that the sentence processing mechanism operates in the "top-down" procedure at first, and then in the "bottom-up" procedure. Thus, we obtained a new knowledge concerning the understanding of "empty" element in a sentence.Although there are some research works concerning parsing of Japanese, this kind of co-operative work by linguist and psychologist are rare. This findings mentioned above are some out-come of the joint research. In the future, new products of this kind of joint research will increase.