Biomaterial Database

The lexical nature of syntactic ambiguity resolution [corrected]. 1994

M C MacDonald, and N J Pearlmutter, and M S Seidenberg

Program in Neural, Informational, and Behavioral Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 90089-2520.

Ambiguity resolution is a central problem in language comprehension. Lexical and syntactic ambiguities are standardly assumed to involve different types of knowledge representations and be resolved by different mechanisms. An alternative account is provided in which both types of ambiguity derive from aspects of lexical representation and are resolved by the same processing mechanisms. Reinterpreting syntactic ambiguity resolution as a form of lexical ambiguity resolution obviates the need for special parsing principles to account for syntactic interpretation preferences, reconciles a number of apparently conflicting results concerning the roles of lexical and contextual information in sentence processing, explains differences among ambiguities in terms of ease of resolution, and provides a more unified account of language comprehension than was previously available.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D008960	Models, Psychological	Theoretical representations that simulate psychological processes and/or social processes. These include the use of mathematical equations, computers, and other electronic equipment.	Model, Mental,Model, Psychological,Models, Mental,Models, Psychologic,Psychological Models,Mental Model,Mental Models,Model, Psychologic,Psychologic Model,Psychologic Models,Psychological Model
D003071	Cognition	Intellectual or mental process whereby an organism obtains knowledge.	Cognitive Function,Cognitions,Cognitive Functions,Function, Cognitive,Functions, Cognitive
D003463	Cues	Signals for an action; that specific portion of a perceptual field or pattern of stimuli to which a subject has learned to respond.	Cue
D004193	Discrimination Learning	Learning that is manifested in the ability to respond differentially to various stimuli.	Discriminative Learning,Discrimination Learnings,Discriminative Learnings,Learning, Discrimination,Learning, Discriminative
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D013067	Speech Perception	The process whereby an utterance is decoded into a representation in terms of linguistic units (sequences of phonetic segments which combine to form lexical and grammatical morphemes).	Speech Discrimination,Discrimination, Speech,Perception, Speech
D014825	Vocabulary	The sum or the stock of words used by a language, a group, or an individual. (From Webster, 3d ed)	Vocabularies