Syntactic Processing

This article aims to investigate the correlation between the memory skill with syntactic and phonological awareness in the process of reading comprehension both in normal and dyslexic Persian speaking children. Working memory is an important factor for reading process having an important role in phonological and syntactic processing during reading comprehension process. There are different approaches and models of memory. But the common fact of all of them is that memory is a multicomponent system and the roles of which is the storage and the processing of different kinds of information.  This investigation is done based on Baddely (1999) and Jackendoff (2002) models of memory. Jackendoff (2002) believes that memory can be considered as a table on which different processors including phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic processors are processing linguistic structures

In contemporary society, a large number of students increasingly choose sound-filled environments over quiet ones when completing academic tasks. Consequently, it is helpful to understand whether music types impact students' cognitive processes associated with academic tasks. This study investigated the effects of different types of lyrical background music on the syntactic and orthographic processing of fluent English-speaking students. A total of twenty-one participants (grades nine through twelve) were tested in the presence of three background music conditions in the following order: English background music (t1), foreign background music (t2), and a silent condition (t3). Syntactic processing was assessed using standardized reading comprehension tests completed in each condition, while orthographic processing was measured through word scramble tests completed in each condition. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed significant differences in reading comprehension scores between the three conditions (F = 6.159, p < 0.00369). Exposure to English background music (t1) slightly impaired syntactic processing, whereas foreign lyrical music (t2) significantly impaired syntactic processing, when both are compared to the silent condition (t3). However, no significant differences were observed when comparing orthographic processing scores between the three conditions (F = 1.871, p < 0.163). These combined results highlight the implications of background music with different language backgrounds on cognitive processes in academic settings.

Sentence understanding is affected by recent experience. An important open question is whether this reflects adaptation to the statistics of the input. Support for this hypothesis comes from the recent finding that listeners can simultaneously learn and maintain the syntactic statistics of multiple talkers (Kamide, 2012). We attempt—and fail—to replicate this finding. This calls into questions whether recency effects in sentence processing originate in the same adaptive mechanisms operating during speech perception (for which talker-specific adaptation is well-established).

This study was set out to conduct an acoustic analysis of intonation patterns
and how they correlate with “speech style” and “gender” in children's
spontaneous speech and storytelling style. For this purpose, 20 normal Persianspeaking children aged 4-5 years (10 boys and 10 girls) were recorded in two
speech styles. In doing so, 60 interrogative sentences uttered by the children in
the two styles were selected randomly for acoustic analysis. The analysis was
performed using PRAAT version 6.1.38 based on "Rise/Fall/Connection
Model (RFC)" (Taylor, 1995 & 2009). Three acoustic parameters of “pitch,”
“duration,” and “intensity” were considered. In order to check dependability of
the data and correlation between “intonation pattern,” "speech style,” and
“gender,” the data were statistically analyzed through t-test. The statistical
analysis was carried out using SPSS version 21. Our results showed that
“speech style” influenced the intonation pattern in speech of girls and boys.
Besides, values of the three acoustic parameters in children's storytelling was
significantly different from those in their spontaneous speech (p < 0.05).
However, the speakers’ intonation pattern was not influenced by their gender.
Moreover, it was found that the mean score of pitch amplitude, duration,
intensity, vowel stretching, and number of pauses was significantly higher for
girls than for boys. However, the overall speech tempo was significantly faster
for boys. The study concluded that girls were better storytellers than boys from
phonetic point of view.

از آن‌جا که گذرائی یک مفهوم مهم در زبان و گفتمان است، بررسی آن در گفتار کودک می‌تواند پاسخگوی مسائل زیادی در حوزۀ زبان آموزی کودک باشد. گذرائی در رویکرد معنایی ـ گفتمانی هاپر و تامسون بر اساس معیارهای متفاوتی تعریف می‌شود که یکی از آن‌ها حضور مفعول است. از معیارهای دیگر می‌توان به عناصری چون لحظه‌ای بودن و غایتمندی عمل، عاملیت کنش‌گر و میزان تأثیرپذیری مفعول اشاره کرد. در این اثر به بررسی مؤلفه‌های مطرح شده درنظریه هاپر و تامسون در گفتار کودک فارسی زبان و تفاوت آن ها با گفتار بزرگسال می‍‍‍‍‍پردازیم. تعیین مشخصات سرنمون گذرائی و میزان فراوانی آن در گفتار کودک از دیگر مسائل این پژوهش است. به این منظور پیکره‌ای شامل 100 بند خبری مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. روش تحلیل داده‌ها از نوع توصیفی- تحلیلی بود. تحلیل پیکره پژوهش نشان داد در گفتار کودک فارسی زبان مؤلفه‌های هاپر و تامسون به صور مختلف معنایی یا واژنحوی قابل بازیابی اند. مؤلفه‌های مشارکان، جنبشی بودن عمل و تأثیرپذیری مفعول امتیاز بیشتری در گفتار کودک کسب کردند که حاکی از درجه گذرائی بالاتر بندهای گفتار کودک نسبت به بزرگسال است. سرنمون گذرا...

La hipótesis de la calidad y cantidad léxicas (Perfetti & Hart, 2002) postula que, en la medida en que el vocabulario se amplía y robustece, se facilita su recuperación y representación. El objetivo de este trabajo es pesquisar cómo se incorpora el léxico disciplinar en estudiantes novatos de Kinesiología. Para aquello, se aplicó una tarea de decisión léxica conformada por una prueba de vocabulario de alta frecuencia y otra, de palabras disciplinares a 55 estudiantes. Los resultados indican que las palabras disciplinares son de difícil reconocimiento, a pesar de los resultados arrojados por la prueba de palabras comunes.

Introducción. El propósito principal de este estudio era investigar si los niños con dificultades lectoras en una ortografía consistente muestran un déficit en procesamiento sintáctico. Esta investigación se ha centrado en explorar el procesamiento sintáctico y el uso de los marcadores morfológicos de los sujetos con dificultades lectoras. Se analizó la ejecución de dichos grupos en las distintas tareas del módulo sintáctico de la batería multimedia SICOLE (Jiménez, et al., 2002) que agrupamos en tres bloques: concordancia de género y número, estructura gramatical y palabras funcionales.Método. Se seleccionó una muestra de 97 sujetos (52 niños y 45 niñas). Se utilizó un diseño de nivel de lectura de tres grupos. Un grupo experimental formado por 29 sujetos con DAL de 4º nivel de primaria; un grupo control de 41 buenos lectores igualados en edad con el grupo anterior; y un grupo control de 27 sujetos de 2º nivel igualados en nivel lector con el grupo con DAL.Resultados. Los niños con...

Pe scurt: atunci când corectăm un sunet parcurgem câteva etape, impostarea, etapă în care învăţăm să îl pronunţăm, consolidarea, când am reuşit să îl emitem şi îl pronunţăm în cuvinte, diferenţierea de sunetul cu care se face confuzia şi automatizarea, când folosim corect în vorbirea curentă, spontană sunetul învăţat. În special pentru copii care au mai multe sunete afectate sunt foarte importante şi exerciţiile generale, pregătitoare pentru corectarea oricărui sunet.

Introducción. El propósito principal de este estudio era investigar si los niños con dificultades lectoras en una ortografía consistente muestran un déficit en procesamiento sintáctico. Esta investigación se ha centrado en explorar el procesamiento sintáctico y el uso de los marcadores morfológicos de los sujetos con dificultades lectoras. Se analizó la ejecución de dichos grupos en las distintas tareas del módulo sintáctico de la batería multimedia SICOLE (Jiménez, et al., 2002) que agrupamos en tres bloques: concordancia de género y número, estructura gramatical y palabras funcionales.Método. Se seleccionó una muestra de 97 sujetos (52 niños y 45 niñas). Se utilizó un diseño de nivel de lectura de tres grupos. Un grupo experimental formado por 29 sujetos con DAL de 4º nivel de primaria; un grupo control de 41 buenos lectores igualados en edad con el grupo anterior; y un grupo control de 27 sujetos de 2º nivel igualados en nivel lector con el grupo con DAL.Resultados. Los niños con...

Introducción. El propósito principal de este estudio era investigar si los niños con dificultades lectoras en una ortografía consistente muestran un déficit en procesamiento sintáctico. Esta investigación se ha centrado en explorar el procesamiento sintáctico y el uso de los marcadores morfológicos de los sujetos con dificultades lectoras. Se analizó la ejecución de dichos grupos en las distintas tareas del módulo sintáctico de la batería multimedia SICOLE (Jiménez, et al., 2002) que agrupamos en tres bloques: concordancia de género y número, estructura gramatical y palabras funcionales.Método. Se seleccionó una muestra de 97 sujetos (52 niños y 45 niñas). Se utilizó un diseño de nivel de lectura de tres grupos. Un grupo experimental formado por 29 sujetos con DAL de 4º nivel de primaria; un grupo control de 41 buenos lectores igualados en edad con el grupo anterior; y un grupo control de 27 sujetos de 2º nivel igualados en nivel lector con el grupo con DAL.Resultados. Los niños con...

Author Address 1. Ph.D. Candidate of General Linguistics, Bushehr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bushehr, Iran; 2. Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, Marvdasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht, Iran; 3. Assistant Professor, Research Center of Addiction and Behavioral Sciences, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Science, Yazd, Iran; 4. Assistant Professor, Department of English Literature, Bushehr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bushehr, Iran; 5. Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. *Corresponding author’s email: h.sharafzadeh@gmail.com

Aiming at investigating whether and how the reading activities proposed in the textbook Way to Go! (2013) promote processing efficiency, the theoretical constructs proposed in the work of Gagné, C. Yekovich and F. Yekovich (1993) and of Daneman and Carpenter (1980) were used as a basis for the present study. Results show that the analyzed textbook aids the reader in anticipating vocabulary difficulties, therefore, suggesting that the activities seem to foster the sub-processes of decoding and lexical access. Inferential comprehension is promoted through the integration of information in activities that engage the reader in establishing a relationship between prior knowledge of the reading topic and of concepts involved and textual information. However, guidance on the use of strategies and on comprehension monitoring are not exploited separately in the analyzed units.

It has been shown that prosody contributes to the contrast between declarativity and interrogativity, notably in interrogative utterances lacking lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity. Accordingly, it may be proposed that prosody plays a role in marking wh-in-situ questions in which the interrogativity feature (the wh-phrase) does not move to sentence-initial position, as, for example, in Persian. This paper examines whether prosody distinguishes Persian wh-in-situ questions from declaratives in the absence of the interrogativity feature in the sentence-initial position. To answer this question, a production experiment was designed in which wh-questions and declaratives were elicited from Persian native speakers. On the basis of the results of previous studies, we hypothesize that prosodic features mark wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives at both the local (pre- and post-wh part) and global level (complete sentence). The results of the current study confirm our hy...

This paper addresses the problem of universal and languagespecific features in intonation perception. It reports the results of a sentence type (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory) identification task performed by Japanese and Russian subjects on re-synthesised one-word two-syllable stimuli with modified rising-falling contours. The effect of parameter manipulations on sentence type perception is investigated. An increase in the height or interval of the rise leads to a decrease in declarative judgement. Stimuli with a rise exceeding 5.2st are not perceived as declarative, which suggests the existence of a categorical boundary in perception. Raising the fall start pitch increases exclamatory and decreases declarative judgement. Raising the fall end pitch has the same effect on the perception by Japanese subjects, but does not influence the perception by Russian subjects. Some significant differences between the two subject groups are found in the perception of stimuli as interr...

Introducción. El propósito principal de este estudio era investigar si los niños con dificultades lectoras en una ortografía consistente muestran un déficit en procesamiento sintáctico. Esta investigación se ha centrado en explorar el procesamiento sintáctico y el uso de los marcadores morfológicos de los sujetos con dificultades lectoras. Se analizó la ejecución de dichos grupos en las distintas tareas del módulo sintáctico de la batería multimedia SICOLE (Jiménez, et al., 2002) que agrupamos en tres bloques: concordancia de género y número, estructura gramatical y palabras funcionales.Método. Se seleccionó una muestra de 97 sujetos (52 niños y 45 niñas). Se utilizó un diseño de nivel de lectura de tres grupos. Un grupo experimental formado por 29 sujetos con DAL de 4º nivel de primaria; un grupo control de 41 buenos lectores igualados en edad con el grupo anterior; y un grupo control de 27 sujetos de 2º nivel igualados en nivel lector con el grupo con DAL.Resultados. Los niños con...

Sentence understanding is affected by recent experience. An important open question is whether this reflects adaptation to the statistics of the input. Support for this hypothesis comes from the recent finding that listeners can simultaneously learn and maintain the syntactic statistics of multiple talkers (Kamide, 2012). We attempt—and fail—to replicate this finding. This calls into questions whether recency effects in sentence processing originate in the same adaptive mechanisms operating during speech perception (for which talker-specific adaptation is well-established).

Sentence understanding is affected by recent experience. An important open question is whether this reflects adaptation to the statistics of the input. Support for this hypothesis comes from the recent finding that listeners can simultaneously learn and maintain the syntactic statistics of multiple talkers (Kamide, 2012). We attempt—and fail—to replicate this finding. This calls into questions whether recency effects in sentence processing originate in the same adaptive mechanisms operating during speech perception (for which talker-specific adaptation is well-established).

Background and Aim: Recently, researchers have increasingly turned to study the relation between stuttering and syntactic complexity. This study investigates the effect of syntactic complexity on the amount of speech dysfluency in stuttering Persian-speaking children and adults in conversational speech. The obtained results can pave the way to a better understanding of stuttering in children and adults, and finding more appropriate treatments. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the participants were 15 stuttering adult Persian-speakers, older than 15 years, and 15 stuttering child Persian-speakers of 4-6 years of age. In this study, first a 30 minute sample of the spontaneous speech of the participants was provided. Then the utterances of each person were studied in respect to the amount of dysfluency and syntactic complexity. The obtained information was analyzed using paired samples t-test. Results: In both groups of stuttering children and adults, there was a significant dif...

It has been shown that prosody contributes to the contrast between declarativity and interrogativity, notably in interrogative utterances lacking lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity. Accordingly, it may be proposed that prosody plays a role in marking wh-in-situ questions in which the interrogativity feature (the wh-phrase) does not move to sentence-initial position, as, for example, in Persian. This paper examines whether prosody distinguishes Persian wh-in-situ questions from declaratives in the absence of the interrogativity feature in the sentence-initial position. To answer this question, a production experiment was designed in which wh-questions and declaratives were elicited from Persian native speakers. On the basis of the results of previous studies, we hypothesize that prosodic features mark wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives at both the local (pre- and post-wh part) and global level (complete sentence). The results of the current study confirm our hy...