scholarly journals The syntactic complexity of Russian relative clauses

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Levy ◽  
Evelina Fedorenko ◽  
Edward Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Complexity

Syntactic Complexity in Spanish Narratives

1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 645-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera F. Gutierrez-Clellen ◽  
Richard Hofstetter
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Developmental Differences ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
School Age ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Structural Constituent ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Nominal Clauses

Syntactic complexity in the movie retellings of 77 school-age Spanish-speaking children was examined using a structural constituent analysis. The results demonstrated developmental differences in the length of T-units, index of subordination, use of relative clauses, and prepositional phrases. There were also differences in the length of T-units, use of nominal clauses, and adverbial phrases across Spanish language groups. The analysis underscores the significance of subordination as a cohesive device and as an indicator of narrative proficiency.

scholarly journals Bilingual deaf readers’ use of semantic and syntactic cues in the processing of English relative clauses

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 980-998 ◽  
Author(s):  
PILAR PIÑAR ◽  
MATTHEW T. CARLSON ◽  
JILL P. MORFORD ◽  
PAOLA E. DUSSIAS
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Reading Speed ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
Deaf Readers ◽  
Syntactic Cues ◽  
Processing Difficulty ◽  
Object Relative

Eye fixation measures were used to examine English relative clause processing by adult ASL–English bilingual deaf readers. Participants processed subject relative clauses faster than object relative clauses, but expected animacy cues eliminated processing difficulty in object relative clauses. This brings into question previous claims that deaf readers’ sentence processing strategies are qualitatively different from those of hearing English native speakers. Measures of English comprehension predicted reading speed, but not differences in syntactic processing. However, a trend for ASL self-ratings to predict the ability to handle syntactic complexity approached significance. Results suggest a need to explore how objective ASL proficiency measures might provide insights into deaf readers’ ability to exploit syntactic cues in English.

scholarly journals Identifying signs of syntactic complexity for rule-based sentence simplification

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD EVANS ◽  
CONSTANTIN ORĂSAN
Keyword(s):  
Error Analysis ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
New Method ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Annotation Scheme ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Sources Of Error ◽  
System Output ◽  
Limited Coverage

AbstractThis article presents a new method to automatically simplify English sentences. The approach is designed to reduce the number of compound clauses and nominally bound relative clauses in input sentences. The article provides an overview of a corpus annotated with information about various explicit signs of syntactic complexity and describes the two major components of a sentence simplification method that works by exploiting information on the signs occurring in the sentences of a text. The first component is a sign tagger which automatically classifies signs in accordance with the annotation scheme used to annotate the corpus. The second component is an iterative rule-based sentence transformation tool. Exploiting the sign tagger in conjunction with other NLP components, the sentence transformation tool automatically rewrites long sentences containing compound clauses and nominally bound relative clauses as sequences of shorter single-clause sentences. Evaluation of the different components reveals acceptable performance in rewriting sentences containing compound clauses but less accuracy when rewriting sentences containing nominally bound relative clauses. A detailed error analysis revealed that the major sources of error include inaccurate sign tagging, the relatively limited coverage of the rules used to rewrite sentences, and an inability to discriminate between various subtypes of clause coordination. Despite this, the system performed well in comparison with two baselines. This finding was reinforced by automatic estimations of the readability of system output and by surveys of readers’ opinions about the accuracy, accessibility, and meaning of this output.

scholarly journals Syntactic complexity and language contact: A corpus-based study of relative clauses in British English and Indian English

2017 ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Iván Tamaredo
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
British English ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
L1 And L2

The aim of the present paper is to test the claim that contact simplifies language (cf. Kusters, 2008) by comparing the domain of relative clause formation in British English, a L1 variety, and Indian English, a L2 variety. According to Hawkins (1999), the processing cost of relativizing a noun phrase increases down the Accessibility Hierarchy (Subject > Direct Object> Indirect Object > Oblique > Genitive> Object of Comparison) proposed by Keenan and Comrie (1977). Subject relative clauses are thus easier to process than direct object relatives, and so on. The results of a corpus study of the British and Indian components of the International Corpus of English show that the Accessibility Hierarchy has an indirect effect on the production of relative clauses in British English and Indian English: whereas the distribution of relative clauses with respect to the hierarchy is very similar in both varieties, the number of complex relatives, i.e., with coordination or further embedding, decreases in the lower positions in Indian English. These results thus suggest that language contact plays a significant role in relative clause use and accounts for certain differences between L1 and L2 varieties of English in this grammatical domain.

Comparing Syntactic Complexity: Research Papers Written by Undergraduate Researchers and Published Research Papers

2021 ◽  
pp. 002205742110164
Author(s):  
Xiaofang Zeng
Keyword(s):  
Analysis Of Variance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Unit Length ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Student Research ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Published Research ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

This study compared syntactic complexity between undergraduate students’ research papers and published research papers. A 2 (Groups: experts, students) × 4 (Sections: introduction, methods, results, discussions) mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on each of the following variables: T-unit length, clause density, the frequencies of adverbial clauses, relative clauses, and nominal clauses. The analyses showed there were longer T-units and fewer adverbial clauses in the published papers than in the student papers. Section effects were robust. Qualitative analyses were further conducted to reveal how the student research paper is different from the published papers syntactically. Implications for education were discussed.

Eliciting Verbs From Children With Specific Language Impairment

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Frome Loeb ◽  
Clifton Pye ◽  
Sean Redmond ◽  
Lori Zobel Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Lexical Skills

The focus of assessment and intervention is often aimed at increasing the lexical skills of young children with language impairment. Frequently, the use of nouns is the center of the lexical assessment. As a result, the production of verbs is not fully evaluated or integrated into treatment in a way that accounts for their semantic and syntactic complexity. This paper presents a probe for eliciting verbs from children, describes its effectiveness, and discusses the utility of and problems associated with developing such a probe.

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