Abstract
The development of a process model — a theory of linguistic performance — is a characterisation of how knowledge of language is used. In the preceding chapters we have tried to lay a foundation for pursuing such a process model. In particular we have motivated a modular architecture, containing a distinct syntactic processor, the purpose of which is to relate sound to meaning. We suggest that phonological, syntactic, and semantic processes act concurrently and incrementally. Crucially, however, they are autonomous, input-driven, informationally encapsulated systems with a restricted bandwidth of communication: the fact that they operate incrementally, i.e. construct partial outputs for partial inputs, and in parallel, in no way detracts from their modular status.
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Notes
As a result they argue left branching structures are difficult to process for English speakers, and right branching structures are difficult for Japanese. It is not clear, however, from their discussion, that this fact is indeed predicted by their theory (see (Hasegawa 1990)), nor that it is true empirically (see (Frazier & Rayner 1988)).
A complete assessment of the various strategies which have been proposed would not be particularly fruitful here and the reader is referred to (Clifton & Frazier 1989) for a thorough discussion of various proposals. We will concerns ourselves primarily with the Active Filler Hypothesis which Clifton and Frazier defend, and refer to others only where they are directly relevant.
For a more detailed discussion, the reader is referred to (Clifton & Frazier 1989), where the definition is restricted to apply only in cases where the filler occurs in [Spec,CP]. This is partly due to their conflation of trace and PRO.
See for example (Kimball 1973), or more recently (Gibson 1991) and references therein.
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© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Crocker, M.W. (1996). A Principle-Based Theory of Performance. In: Computational Psycholinguistics. Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1600-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1600-5_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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