Chronological and critical review of sentence comprehension studies

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of real-time sentence comprehension studies, with a focus on the relationship between linguistic theory (grammar) and the language processing system (parser). It explores how research in the cognitive science of language has gone beyond descriptive generalizations to engage with the underlying processing mechanisms. We first clarify the aim of sentence comprehension studies by mapping various subfields of linguistic research onto

three levels of analysis. Then, we see how previous studies have dealt with the relationship between linguistic theory and the language processing system. This chapter argues that studies with explicit assumptions about the relationship between linguistic theory and the language processing system are necessary to understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying real-time sentence comprehension.