Case and Linking in Language Comprehension: Evidence from German

by Markus Bader, Josef Bayer

Overview

The German language, due to its verb-final nature, relatively free order of constituents and morphological Case system, poses challenges for models of human syntactic processing which have mainly been developed on the basis of head-initial languages with little or no morphological Case.

The verb-final order means that the parser has to make predictions about the input before receiving the verb. What are these predictions? What happens when the predictions turn out to be wrong? Furthermore, the German morphological Case system contains ambiguities. How are these ambiguities resolved under the normal time pressure in comprehension?

Based on theoretical as well as experimental work, the present monograph develops a detailed account of the processing steps that underly language comprehension. At its core is a model of linking noun phrases to arguments of the verb in the developing phrase structure and checking the result with respect to features such as person, number and Case.

This volume contains detailed introductions to human syntactic processing as well as to German syntax which will be helpful especially for readers less familiar with psycholinguistics and with Germanic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789048171118
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	01/05/2011
Series:	Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics , #34
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2006
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.78(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

Markus Bader is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Konstanz. He specializes in human language processing with an emphasis on syntax. He was formerly at the University of Jena and has been a visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is widely known for his work on the processing of German.

Josef Bayer is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Konstanz. His specialization is mainly in syntactic theory, and comparative linguistics, Germanic and South-Asian. He was formerly at the University of Jena and has held positions in research centers in Germany and in the Netherlands.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCING THE HUMAN SENTENCE PROCESSING MECHANISM.- WORD ORDER AND CASE IN GERMAN.- FIRST-PASS PREFERENCES IN SYNTACTIC-FUNCTION AMBIGUITIES.- THE MENTAL REPRESENTATION OF CASE.- A MODEL OF LINKING AND CHECKING.- CASE CHECKING AND THE HSPM I: ON LEXICAL REACCESS.- CASE CHECKING AND THE HSPM II: THE ROLE OF WORKING MEMORY.- IN DEFENSE OF SERIAL PARSING.- SUMMARY:LINKING,CHECKING,ANDBEYOND.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

"This is a very good book reporting lots of interesting work particularly for those who concern themselves with the boundary zone of syntax and processing. … First, it is a very well written. The text style is clear and simple; it is succinct and to the point. … Second, it provides all the background information … to make it accessible to non-specialists. … it is a significant contribution to the literature in its field. … I can heartily recommend it to others in the field." (Sam Featherston, The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, Vol. 11, 2008)

From the Publisher