Language
Morpheme
The basic unit of meaning.
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky (1957): Influential work was on syntax.
Incremental Interpretation
Refers to the observation that when processing language, we do not wait until an entire sentence is spoken (or read) before making judgements about what it means.
Lexical Ambiguity
A single word can have multiple meanings.
Aphasia
Has difficulty communicating, typically after brain damage due to a stroke or a tumor.
Phoneme
The basic unit of spoken language. Such as "a" "k" or "th".
Deep Structure
Underlying abstract meaning of a sentence.
On-line Language Processing Measures
Designed to gauge the amount of difficulty one experiences as the linguistic signal unfolds unit-by-unit over time
Syntactic Ambiguity
A sentence structure that is ambiguous, perhaps containing no punctuation.
Broca's Aphasia
Morphology
The study of morphemes.
Surface Structure
The words that are actually spoken or written.
Self-Paced Reading Task
Participants see a series of dashes on a screen that mask each word of the sentence.
Eye-Tracker
A piece of equipment: with a special camera. Allows one to precisely determine where someone is looking.
Wernicke's Aphasia
Produces serious difficulties understanding language.