The Processing of Discontinuous Dependencies in Language and Music

This article examines the nature and time course of the processing of discontinuous dependency relationships in language and draws suggestive parallels to similar issues in music perception. The on-line language comprehension data presented demonstrate that discontinuous structural dependencies cause reactivation of the misordered or "stranded" sentential material at its underlying canonical position in the sentence during ongoing comprehension. Further, this process is demonstrated to be driven by structural knowledge, independent of pragmatic information, aided by prosodic cues, and dependent on race of input. Issues of methodology and of theory that are equally relevant to language and music are detailed.