Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T02:16:19.528Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Toward a model of grammaticality judgments1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2009

MARKUS BADER*
Affiliation:
University of Konstanz
JANA HÄUSSLER*
Affiliation:
University of Konstanz
*
Authors' addresses: University of Konstanz, Department of Linguistics, Universitätsstraße 10, Fach D191, D-78457 Konstanz, Germanymarkus.bader@uni-konstanz.de
University of Konstanz, Department of Linguistics, Universitätsstraße 10, Fach D191, D-78457Konstanz, Germanyjana.haeussler@uni-konstanz.de

Abstract

This paper presents three experiments that investigate the relationship between gradient and binary judgments of grammaticality. In the first two experiments, two different groups of participants judged sentences by the method of magnitude estimation and by the method of speeded grammaticality judgments in a single session. The two experiments involved identical sentence materials but they differed in the order in which the two procedures were applied. The results show a high correlation between the magnitude estimation data and the speeded grammaticality judgments data, both within a session and across the two sessions. The third experiment was a questionnaire study in which participants judged the same sentences as either grammatical or ungrammatical without time pressure. This experiment yielded results quite similar to those of the other two experiments. Thus gradient and binary judgments both provide valuable and reliable sources for linguistic theory when assessed in an experimentally controlled way. We present a model based on Signal Detection Theory which specifies how gradient grammaticality scores are mapped to binary grammaticality judgments. Finally, we compare our experimental results to existing corpus data in order to inquire into the relationship between grammaticality and frequency of usage.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[1]

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 471, Project D2). For helpful comments, we would like to thank Josef Bayer, Simon Hopp, Tom Wasow, and two anonymous reviewers.

References

REFERENCES

Baayen, R. Harald. 2008. Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bader, Markus & Bayer, Josef. 2006. Case and linking in language comprehension – evidence from German. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Bader, Markus & Häussler, Jana. 2006. On the proper place of frequency information within a model of garden-path recovery. Presented at the 19th CUNY Conference on Sentence Processing, City University of New York.Google Scholar
Bader, Markus & Häussler, Jana. To appear. Word order in German: A corpus study. Lingua. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2009.05.007.Google Scholar
Bader, Markus & Henninger, Julia. In preparation. Focus and verb-cluster formation. Ms., University of Konstanz.Google Scholar
Bader, Markus & Schmid, Tanja. 2006. An OT-analysis of do-support in Modern German. Ms., Rutgers Optimality Archive, No. 837-0606.Google Scholar
Bader, Markus & Schmid, Tanja. 2009. Verb clusters in Colloquial German. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 12, 175228.Google Scholar
Bard, Ellen Gurman, Robertson, Dan & Sorace, Antonella. 1996. Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language 72, 3268.Google Scholar
Baroni, Marco, Bernardini, Silvia, Ferraresi, Adriano & Zanchetta, Eros. To appear. The WaCky Wide Web: A collection of very large linguistically processed web-crawled corpora. Language Resources and Evaluation Journal 23, 209226.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Hayes, Bruce. 2001. Empirical tests of the gradual learning algorithm. Linguistic Inquiry 32, 4586.Google Scholar
Bornkessel, Ina & Schlesewsky, Matthias. 2006a. The extended argument dependency model: A neurocognitive approach to sentence comprehension across languages. Psychological Review 113, 787821.Google Scholar
Bornkessel, Ina & Schlesewsky, Matthias. 2006b. The role of contrast in the local licensing of scrambling in German: Evidence from online comprehension. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 18, 143.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cowart, Wayne. 1997. Experimental syntax: Applying objective methods to sentence judgments. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Crocker, Matthew & Keller, Frank. 2006. Probabilistic grammars as models of gradience. In Fanselow, et al. (eds.), 227245.Google Scholar
Dikken, Marcel den, Bernstein, Judy B., Tortora, Christina & Zanuttini, Raffaela. 2007. Data and grammar: Means and individuals. Theoretical Linguistics 33, 335352.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Peter. 2004. Grundriß der deutschen Grammatik, vol. 2: Der Satz, 2nd edn.Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag.Google Scholar
Evans, Vyvyan & Green, Melanie. 2006. Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Fanselow, Gisbert, Féry, Caroline, Vogel, Ralf & Schlesewsky, Matthias (eds.). 2006. Gradience in grammar: Generative perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Featherston, Sam. 2005a. That-trace in German. Lingua 115, 12771302.Google Scholar
Featherston, Sam. 2005b. The decathlon model of empirical syntax. In Reis, Marga & Kepser, Stephan (eds.), Linguistic evidence, 187208. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Featherston, Sam. 2005c. Universals and grammaticality: Wh-constraints in German and English. Linguistics 43, 667711.Google Scholar
Featherston, Sam. 2007. Data in generative grammar: The stick and the carrot. Theoretical Linguistics 33, 269318.Google Scholar
Ferreira, Fernanda & Henderson, John M.. 1991. Recovery from misanalysis of garden-path sentences. Journal of Memory and Language 30, 725745.Google Scholar
Frazier, Lyn & Flores d'Arcais, Giovanni B.. 1989. Filler-driven parsing: A study of gap-filling in Dutch. Journal of Memory and Language 28, 331344.Google Scholar
Green, David M. & Swets, John A.. 1966. Signal detection theory and psychophysics. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Häussler, Jana & Bader, Markus. 2006. Does the subject–object preference follow from early assignment of thematic roles? Presented at the 12th Annual Conference on Architecture and Mechanisms for Language Processing, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Hoberg, Ursula. 1981. Die Wortstellung in der geschriebenen deutschen Gegenwartssprache. München: Hueber.Google Scholar
Hopp, Holger. 2007. Ultimate attainment at the interfaces in second language acquisition: Grammar and processing. Groningen: Grodil Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Frank. 2000a. Evaluating competition-based models of word order. In Gleitman, Lila R. & Joshi, Aravandi K. (eds.), 22nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 747752. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Keller, Frank. 2000b. Gradience in grammar: Experimental and computational aspects of degrees of grammaticality. Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Keller, Frank & Alexopoulou, Theodora. 2001. Phonology competes with syntax: Experimental evidence for the interaction of word order and accent placement in the realization of information structure. Cognition 79, 301372.Google Scholar
Keller, Frank & Lapata, Mirella. 2003. Using the web to obtain frequencies for unseen bigrams. Computational Linguistics 29, 459484.Google Scholar
Keller, Frank & Sorace, Antonella. 2003. Gradient auxiliary selection and impersonal passivization in German: An experimental investigation. Journal of Linguistics 39, 57108.Google Scholar
Kempen, Gerard & Harbusch, Karin. 2004. A corpus study into word order variation in German subordinate clauses: Animacy affects linearization independently of grammatical function assignment. In Pechmann, Thomas & Habel, Christopher (eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to language production, 173181. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kempen, Gerard & Harbusch, Karin. 2005. The relationship between grammaticality ratings and corpus frequencies: A case study into word-order variability in the midfield of German clauses. In Reis, Marga & Kepser, Stephan (eds.), Linguistic evidence, 329349. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kempen, Gerard & Harbusch, Karin. 2008. Comparing linguistic judgments and corpus frequencies as windows on grammatical competence: A study of argument linearization in German clauses. In Steube, Anita (ed.), The discourse potential of underspecified structures, 179192. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kirk, Roger E. 1995. Experimental design: Procedures for the behavioral sciences, 3rd edn.Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1977. Empirical foundations of linguistic theory. In Austerlitz, Robert (ed.), The First Golden Anniversary Symposium of the Linguistic Society of America – The scope of American linguistics, 77133. Lisse: Peter de Ridder.Google Scholar
Leirbukt, Oddleif. 1997. Untersuchungen zum “bekommen” -Passiv im heutigen Deutsch. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
MacMillan, Neil A. & Greelman, C. Douglas. 1991. Detection theory: A user's guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maindonald, John & Braun, John. 2006. Data analysis and graphics using R: An example-based approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Manning, Christopher D. 2003. Probabilistic syntax. In Bod, Rens, Hay, Jennifer & Jannedy, Stefanie (eds.), Probabilistic linguistics, 289341. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McDaniel, Dana & Cowart, Wayne. 1999. Experimental evidence of a minimalist account of English resumptive pronouns. Cognition 70, B15B24.Google Scholar
Meng, Michael & Bader, Markus. 2000. Ungrammaticality detection and garden-path strength: Evidence for serial parsing. Language and Cognitive Processes 15, 615666.Google Scholar
Meng, Michael, Bader, Markus & Bayer, Josef. 1999. Die Verarbeitung von Subjekt–Objekt-Ambiguitäten im Kontext. In Wachsmuth, Ipke & Jung, Bernhard (eds.), KogWiss99. Proceedings der 4. Fachtagung der Gesellschaft für Kognitionswissenschaft, 244249. St. Augustin: Infix Verlag.Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick J. 2003. Grammar is grammar and usage is usage. Language 79, 682707.Google Scholar
Ratcliff, Roger. 1978. A theory of memory retrieval. Psychological Review 85, 59108.Google Scholar
Sapp, Christopher D. 2006. Verb order in subordinate clauses from Early New High German to Modern German. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Schmid, Tanja & Vogel, Ralf. 2004. Dialectal variation in German 3-verb clusters. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 7, 235274.Google Scholar
Schütze, Carson T. 1996. The empirical base of linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Siewierska, Anna. 1993. On the interplay of factors in the determination of word order. In Jacobs, Joachim, Stechow, Arnim von, Sternefeld, Wolfgang & Vennemann, Theo (eds.), Syntax: An international handbook of contemporary research, 826846. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Sorace, Antonella. 1992. Lexical conditions on syntactic knowledge: Auxiliary selection in native and non-native grammars of Italian. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Sorace, Antonella. 2000. Gradients in auxiliary selection with intransitive verbs. Language 76, 859890.Google Scholar
Sorace, Antonella & Keller, Frank. 2005. Gradience in linguistic data. Lingua 115, 14971524.Google Scholar
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. Continuous acceptability, categorical grammaticality, and experimental syntax. Biolinguistics 1, 123134.Google Scholar
Stevens, Stanley S. 1975. Psychophysics: Introduction to its perceptual, neural, and social prospects. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Warner, John & Glass, Arnold L.. 1987. Context and distance-to-disambiguation effects in ambiguity resolution: Evidence from grammaticality judgments of garden path sentences. Journal of Memory and Language 26, 714738.Google Scholar
Weskott, Thomas & Fanselow, Gisbert. 2009. Scaling issues in the measurement of linguistic acceptability. In Featherston, Sam & Winkler, Susanne (eds.), The fruits of empirical linguistics, vol. 1: Process, 229245. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Wurmbrand, Susi. 2004. Syntactic vs. post-syntactic movement. In Burelle, Sophie & Somesfalean, Stanca (eds.), 2003 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association (CLA), 284295. Montreal: Université du Québec à Montréal, Département de linguistique et de didactique des langues.Google Scholar
Wurmbrand, Susi. 2006. Verb clusters, verb raising, and restructuring. In Everaert, Martin & Riemsdijk, Henk van (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. 5, 229343. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar