Experimental approaches to sentence processing focus on localizing areas responsible for language comprehension in the brain oftentimes disregarding the role of time in both the construction and...Show moreExperimental approaches to sentence processing focus on localizing areas responsible for language comprehension in the brain oftentimes disregarding the role of time in both the construction and deconstruction of linguistic structure. Inspired by predictive coding and cue integration, this thesis proposes a theoretical framework for sentence processing where the hierarchical structure of language and its evolution over time profoundly influences its processing leading to time-contingent weighted integration of information. Essential to this theory is the assumption that the reliability of the internal representations generated by each level of linguistic analysis influences the gain of the predictions formulated by the other levels. Multivariate Pattern Analysis was used to compare the gain of semantic and phonological processing at two different timepoints in a sentence. Experiment 1 was the design of an EEG Multivariate Pattern Classification experiment where the classification accuracy of a phonological and semantic classifier for words in early and late positions in a sentence would be compared. We expected classification accuracy of the phonological classifier to be constant regardless of word position and a higher classification accuracy for the semantic classifier at later time points relative to the phonological classifier. Experiment 2 was a Representational Similarity Analysis of nouns in early and late positions from MEG audiobook data. When correlating Phonological and Semantic models with the data, no significant time windows were found. However, the presence of uncorrected clusters suggests the implementation of nested timescales as variations in temporal integration frequency.Show less
The phonetic-pragmatic interface has provided linguistics with an interesting question that the literature has not yet been able to answer conclusively: Does intonation directly communicate meaning...Show moreThe phonetic-pragmatic interface has provided linguistics with an interesting question that the literature has not yet been able to answer conclusively: Does intonation directly communicate meaning? This thesis describes an exploratory elicitation experiment in which the effects of two pragmatic dimensions on the production of Dutch intonation is examined within three core meanings: “testing”, “selection”, “selection plus”. The productions of native speakers – realised on two-syllable proper names – were recorded in four pragmatic dimension combinations: default or vocative (orientation), and formal or informal (politeness). The meanings and pragmatic dimensions were embodied in situational contexts that served to elicit individual intonation contours for each meaning configuration. Additionally, the effect of word length was considered in a secondary experiment by employing one- and three-syllable proper names in a constant pragmatic environment. Results show a main effect of orientation across core meanings caused by different contextual variables. Politeness yielded only one main effect as a result of the configuration of speaker-hearer relations. Productions were found to be consistent across word lengths. The effects of the pragmatic dimensions are of definite influence on the production of Dutch intonation contours, but they could not be generalised across core meanings due to context discrepancies, indicating the importance of situational background.Show less
This research attempts to investigate the planning process of an utterance. Two experiments have been conducted one with an online speech production task and one with a reading aloud production...Show moreThis research attempts to investigate the planning process of an utterance. Two experiments have been conducted one with an online speech production task and one with a reading aloud production task. The first produced word from the utterances is analysed to give an answer of the research question: how to plan an utterance during online vs reading-aloud speech production? It turned out that at syntactic planning the phrase for both experiments is the preferred unit of planning. Speech onset latencies and initial F0 peaks form evidence for this planning process. Within the first phonological word of the utterances no main effect was found for onset latencies in the reading- aloud task, while this was found in the online speech production task. Furthermore, no main effect was found for the initial F0 peaks in the online speech production task, while this was found for the reading- aloud task. Thus, the planning at phonological level seems to be different for both speech productions tasks.Show less
