<OT> New Posting: ROA-674

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ROA 674-0804

Evaluating Competition-based Models of Word Order

Frank Keller <keller at inf.ed.ac.uk>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=674


Abstract:
 The ordering of constituents in semi-free word order languages
has attracted considerable attention in theoretical linguistics.
Three types of models have been proposed to explain word
order preferences, based on (a) weighted constraints, (b)
Optimality Theory (c) syntactic weight. All three models
use grammatical competition to explain the interaction of
word order constraints. They rely on intuitive judgments
or corpus studies, but have not been evaluated against experiment
al data. This is the purpose of the present paper. We report
the results of a magnitude estimation experiment investigating
word order in German, focusing on the interaction of verb
position, case marking, pronominalization, and information
structure. The experimental data are compatible with models
(a) and (b), indicating that relativized (ranked or weighted)
constraints are essential in explaining word order preferences.
Model (c), on the other hand, is not compatible with the data.

Comments: In Lila R. Gleitman and Aravid K. Joshi, eds., Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 747-752. Mahawah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000.
Keywords: competition-based models, weight-based models, word order, magnitude estimation, gradience
Areas: Syntax,Computation,Psycholinguistics
Type: Conference Proceedings Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=674