10. Language Production and Comprehension

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Language production and

comprehensionLanguage, Mind and Brain

Week 9



Brief re-cap…

1. Name and explain 5 of Hockett’s design features.Which of those are unique to human language?

2. What are the 2 main theories regarding languageorganisation in the mind? What evidence exists for

both of them?3. Identify and explain 2 ways of investigating where

language is located in the brain.

4. Identify and explain 2 types of aphasia.

5. ‘Developed Broca’s areas in casts of skulls from H.habilis and H. erectus are a clear evidence that theycould speak.’ Discuss.



Speech production – first ideas

Based on what you know from the module so

far, but also as a language user, try and

develop a framework/schema of speech

production. What steps would need to be

involved?

What empirical evidence exists to develop

such a model?



Production – basic issues

Online, real-time process

Processing speed of ~15 phonemes per second

Testing perception is easier, as stimuli can becontrolled ( experiments)

Difficult (impossible?) to test the beginning of theproduction process ( ‘ideas’)

Speakers are constantly monitoring themselves makes correction possible before/during/ after the

utterance But: delays in hearing own utterance can cause irritation

and stuttering



Basic issues cont’d

Mental information must be brought into serial

order

Link between mental lexicon and concepts

Sentence plan, appropriate word order (context!!)

Appropriate stress pattern

Style, register etc



Speech production: evidence

evidence scarce

Available evidence:

Pauses Speech errors



Evidence 1: Pauses

Breathing pauses:

Usually at grammatical boundaries.

Few. Don’t tell us much.

Hesitation pauses:

Frequent, little overt purpose (like breathing)

Usually occur within clauses/grammatical units



Pauses cont’d

Plan Clause

A

Utter Clause

A

Plan clause

B

Utter Clause

B

Plan

Clause A

Plan

Clause B

UtterClause A

UtterClause B

or

overlap in planning

and speaking process



Speech production errors:

slips of the tongue

Lots of ‘competition’ during speech

production ( ‘co-activation’)

Separate involvement of meaning and form (

different networks??)

Large distances are covered ahead Internal

representation must be there before slip

happens



Slips of the tongue

Constraint-based

Usually at onsets (of some kind):

well made mell wade (but not *wem llade)

Only some positions are switched



Homework!

Collect as many slips of the tongue and/or

other speech production errors you come

across until next week’s session.

Bring your collection to next week’s seminar.

Try and categorise the errors.

What do they tell us about speech production?



Tip of the tongue phenomenon

You know what you want to say ( concept)

but you can’t remember its form

Very often ‘bathtub effect’: beginning and end

are known, as well as number of syllables

---- \ _____ / ----



A little experiment…

Write down the first word that comes into

mind as soon as you see the stimulus word

appearing on the slide.

Do not discuss with anyone.

Do not go back to a previous slide/word.

Slides are timed at 5 seconds.



Book



Child



Happy



Super



Desire



Previous findings

Book Child Happy Super Desire

See Tim Sun Good Man

Read Mother Sunshine Party Journey

Pages Toys Birthday Great Dream

Literature Play Feeling Fantastic Wish

Lovely Glad Bad Streetcar

Baby Smiley Man Passion

Mum Sad

Adults

Parents



The mental lexicon

‘dictionary in our minds’

Contains lexicalised expressions:

(simple) words

fixed multiword expressions, i.e. idioms

How are words stored:

As whole entities/items? I.e. cat and cats

As roots and inflections? I.e. cat and -s{plural}



Mental lexicon: entries

Contain information about

Phonological form: give /giv/

Word class

Argument structure:V 1 2

give the book to Mary

V NP PP

Meaning: ‘transfer something which in one’s possession to

the possession of someone else’



Word meaning: 2 approaches

Semantic decomposition:

‘atoms of meaning’ , semantic primitives (can’t be dividedinto smaller units of meaning)

mother: +human +female +adult(?) +given birth to child

Familiar procedure (see dictionaries); definitions can stopafter some features

But: how many features? Which components areprimitives?

No empirical evidence that semantic primitives exist

to die: [become [dead]]

to kill: [cause [become [dead]]]



Word meaning: network theories

Strong links between individual words (see

also experiment)

Coordinates, synonyms, hyponyms/hypernyms



How are words stored?

As morphemes? or ready made forms?

Different types of affixes seem to be havedifferently:

Inflectional affixes: Regular forms: added during speech

Irregular: fully listed/independent form

evidence: word recognition tasks

Derivational:

Con-type prefixes: ‘glued’ to their bases: confer,consume, deduct, detain; slips never *desume, *dedamn

t-type suffixes: also glued to base; can change base

radically: sane > sanity



Mental lexicon: suggested parts

Main lexicon/lexicon proper

Whole words, default cases

Dartmouth, Plymouth

Back-up store: Words disassembled into morphemes

Dart-; Ply-; -mouth

Lexical tool-kit: Procedures for making new words

RIVER-mouth



Sentence production: steps involved

1. Conceive message (proposition, ‘idea’)

2. Select words: concepts and phonological

shapes

3. Formulate structured sentence: right

grammatical classes in right order (like SVO)

4. Articulate the sentence.

10. Language Production and Comprehension

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