Admission requirements
This course can only be taken if the course Psycholinguistics has been completed successfully.
Description
In this course we review the classic literature on syntactic and semantic processing with a focus on different parsing theories and experimental work from the past 40 years, covering to name a few, well-known issues within processing literature such as: ambiguity resolution and garden-path effects; plausibility, frequency and working memory effects, and the use of grammatical constraints such as binding or islanhood in parsing.
During the first block of the course, we will discuss essential psycholinguistic models up to the most current ones. In the second block of the course, we will cover the processing of syntactic phenomena, phenomena at the syntax-semantics interface and phenomena at the syntax-prosody interface.
Course objectives
Students acquire basic background knowledge on the classic literature and theories on (syntactic and semantic) sentence processing.
Students are able to analyze and compare different parsing models.
Students are able to recognize different psycholinguisitics and neurolinguistic methods applied to sentence processing.
Students develop critical thinking about the literature covered in the lectures and in the assignments.
Students are able to formulate a research question on a topic in sentence processing and to generate either an original experiment proposal or one that critically extends existing previous experimental work.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Lecture
Assessment method
Assessment
Students will get their total grade (5 ECs) out of the following combination:
(i) 40% of the grade will be based on three-weekly summaries and exercises connected to articles whose topics will be discussed during the course program.
(ii) 60% of the grade will be based on a final research paper to be produced at the end of the course.
Assignments are mandatory and a prerequisite to hand-in the research paper.
As part of the academic writing line within the track Language and Cognition, students are required to hand in a writing assignment, that will be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. Passing the writing assignment is required to pass the course.
Weighing
The final grade will be a weighted average of the three-weekly assignments (40%) and the final research paper (60%). Completion of all the assignments is mandatory and a pre-requisite to be eligible for the submission of the final research paper.
Resit
The resit will consist of rewriting the paper that the student submitted for the course based on the feedback from the Instructor.
inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Selected Chapters and articles from different sources will be listed weekly on Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through My Studymap is mandatory
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar
For questions related to the content of the course, please contact the lecturer, you can find their contact information by clicking on their name in the sidebar.
For questions regarding enrollment please contact the Education Administration Office Reuvensplaats E-mail address Education Administration Office Reuvensplaats: osz-oa-reuvensplaats@hum.leidenuniv.nl
For questions regarding your studyprogress contact the Coordinator of Studies
Remarks
not applicable