Selecting words, specifying grammar

Bock & Levelt (1994), sections I and II

Utku Turk

LING 449U, How words are built

2026-09-15

Grammar before pronunciation

Last class: PAST and -ed can come apart.

Grammatical encoding: selecting words and constructing syntax.

Processing	What gets specified
Functional	Lemmas and grammatical functions
Positional	Word order and inflectional slots

Phonological encoding supplies the sound forms.

Event roles in the message

She was handing him some broccoli.

Event role	Participant
Agent	The person doing the handing
Recipient	The person receiving the broccoli
Theme	The broccoli being transferred

The message also specifies a past, ongoing event.

Function assignment

She was handing him some broccoli.

Selected lemma	Assigned function in this example
Feminine pronoun	Subject / nominative
Masculine pronoun	Dative
broccoli	Accusative
hand	Main verb

Lexical selection and function assignment make up functional processing.

Positional processing

She was handing him some broccoli.

Component	What gets specified
Constituent assembly	Phrase structure and word order
Inflection	Morphological slots within that structure

In handing: stem + affix, expressing the progressive feature.

Phonological encoding supplies the sounds.

Two assumptions

Restricted information flow: each level is influenced by the level immediately above it.
Incrementality: processing can begin on part of an utterance before the preceding level has finished the rest.

Does selection before pronunciation require planning the whole sentence first?

Selecting a lemma

Representation	Information
Concept	SHEEP: an animal, has wool
Lemma	sheep: noun
Lexeme	Morphological and phonological form

Activating SHEEP also activates related concepts, including GOAT.
Their lemmas become active. Selection depends on relative activation.

Relative activation

For a given selection interval:

\[ P(\text{select sheep}) = \frac{\text{activation of sheep}} {\text{total activation of lemmas in the experimental set}} \]

More activation of goat, with sheep unchanged: a lower probability of selecting sheep in that interval.

Retrieving gender or saying the word?

Frequent picture names are produced faster. Dutch task: judge the name’s gender, or name the picture.

After repeated presentations	Word frequency effect
Gender judgment	Disappears
Picture naming	Persists

The authors locate the persistent effect primarily at the lexeme level.

Can sounds affect selection?

Mixed error: oyster for lobster, similar in meaning and sound.

Account	Why mixed errors are frequent
Feedback	Sound activation influences selection
Monitoring	Similar errors are less likely to be detected

What evidence would distinguish producing more errors from detecting fewer?

How is to selected?

Listen to the radio.

Listen has grammatical requirements.
Those requirements lead to selection of to.
The authors call this indirect election.

What would an account based only on lexical concepts leave unexplained here?

What stayed when the nouns exchanged?

Intended: a floor full of holes

Produced: a hole full of floors

The nouns exchanged. Plural marking stayed in the second position.

What would a whole noun phrase exchange have produced?

Warm-up

Combine into one sentence

I saw the man.

Trial 1: you said

I remember the musician that Maya heard.

Trial 2: target

I met the singer that Katie listened to.

Trial 2 ending	What changed
listened to	Nothing
heard	Verb carried over
listened	Verb kept, to lost
heard to	Verb carried over, to kept

Which ending would show that to comes from listen? Which would show a reused structure?

Class tally

Target	Trial before it	Structure before	Meaning before
2: listened to	heard	V + NP	similar
5: replied to	responded to	V + PP	similar
8: pointed to	broke	V + NP	unrelated
11: danced to	referred to	V + PP	unrelated

If you reuse the structure from the trial before, where should to be missing more often?

Your group’s experiment

Groups of three, 10 minutes. Pick one:

Which preposition: adhere to, then comply with
Elected or not: walked to the office, then replied to
Dative: gave Jordan or gave to Jordan, then explained … to Chelsea
Pictures: describe watching birds, then listening to a singer
Case: a language where the verb picks a case instead of a preposition

Write down: what speakers say, what you count, what each account predicts.

Extra slides

Candidate verb pairs

V + NP	V + PP	Sense to hold fixed
hear the singer	listen to the singer	perception vs. attention
answer the e-mail	reply / respond to the e-mail	responding to a message
watch the birds	look at the birds	visual attention
seek a solution	look for a solution	searching
request an extension	ask for an extension	requesting
obey the rules	abide by the rules	compliance
follow the protocol	adhere to the protocol	compliance
follow the regulations	comply with the regulations	compliance
obey Elizabeth	answer to Elizabeth	authority
trust Chelsea	confide in Chelsea	related acts

Dative version

Card 1: A or B

A: recipient NP

I remember the explanation that Alex gave Jordan.

B: recipient PP

I remember the explanation that Alex gave to Jordan.

Card 2: same for A and B

I understood the problem.

Katie explained the problem to Chelsea.

Target

I understood the problem that Katie explained to Chelsea.

Is explained Chelsea more likely after A?