A substantial body of ERP research investigating the processing of syntactic long-distance dependencies has shown that, across languages and construction types, the second element in such configurations typically elicits phasic left anterior negativity (LAN). We hypothesized that these effects are not specific to syntactic dependencies, but rather index a more general cognitive operation in whi...

there are two common ways to assign relative importance in spoken language: tonic prominence and thematization. the former is expressing the main points of information units in speech (halliday, 1994), and the latter is putting an element at the beginning of a clause. this study explores how relative importance is realized in english and persian. it also investigates how advanced persian learne...

In this paper we show how a natural language system can learn to find the antecedents of relative pronouns. We use a well-known conceptual clustering system to create a case-based memory that predicts the antecedent of a wh-word given a description of the clause that precedes it. Our automated approach duplicates the performance of hand-coded rules. In addition, it requires only minimal syntact...

In this paper we show how a natural language system can learn to find the antecedents of relative pronouns. We use a well-known conceptual clustering system to create a case-based memory that predicts the antecedent of a wh-word given a description of the clause that precedes it. Our automated approach duplicates the performance of hand-coded rules. In addition, it requires only minimal syntact...

The puzzle addressed here is the appearance of the POSS sign, pictured at right above, in both attributive (1a) and predicative (2b) possessive constructions.2 Patterns in the morphosyntax and semantics of POSS possessives reveal that the underlying function of POSS across these constructions is that of a verbal predicate. The analysis of POSS as a verbal predicate is transparently supported by...

This study presents a view of diachronic change in language, according to which one of the fundamental factors motivating syntactic change is to be found in the conflicting interaction of principles determining the language organization. Specifically, it will be argued that principles of structural nature and principles of perceptual nature are in conflict in languages of the SOV type, because ...

There are two common ways to assign relative importance in spoken language: tonic prominence and thematization. The former is expressing the main points of information units in speech (Halliday, 1994), and the latter is putting an element at the beginning of a clause. This study explores how relative importance is realized in English and Persian. It also investigates how advanced Persian learne...

in this paper, we examine the treatment of persian relative clauses in role and reference grammar. rrg is a structural-functional theory which has studied the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface in human language systems. the main objectives of this article, on the one hand, are to elucidate syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of farsi relative clauses, and on the other hand, to asse...