DISCOURSE, SEMANTICS, AND SYNTAX

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DESCRIPTION: (Investigator's abstract) Information conveyed through language is usually understood effortlessly. Typically, all facets of a message--semantic, syntactic, pragmatic, social--are processed with little conscious awareness. The goal of the research described in this proposal is to investigate how several of these facets interact. Using linguistic constructions that have been focal points of recent research, the research investigates how the semantic representations of verbs determine the discourse-relevant meanings of syntactic phrases, how lexical event structures can lead to comprehension of information that is inherently ambiguous, and how syntactic phrases can distinguish between information that is currently accessible in a discourse and information that must be retrieved from long-term memory. In each case, new hypotheses are offered and psycholinguistic experiments are designed to test the hypotheses. The proposed hypotheses represent a new view of the relationships among syntax, the meanings of words (lexical semantics), and discourse processing. What makes the view different from other current ideas is the emphasis on syntactic and lexical-syntactic structures as carriers of semantic and discourse information, an emphasis that insists on interactive investigations of discourse, semantics and syntax. This view is new to psychology and so one aim is to work from specific examples toward a general framework. Once significant progress is achieved, consequences should become apparent for understanding the pathologies that impair language faculties and developing remedial treatments. Furthermore, understanding of the interactions of discourse, semantics and syntax will be essential in designing and refining computer assisted reading and comprehension devices.