Grammar: Department of Linguistics - Northwestern University

Grammar

Syntax, Semantics and Sentence Processing group (Grammar Group) at Northwestern is working on a range of topics related to the syntax and semantics of human languages.

We are interested in a range of topics relating to the syntax of human languages, including the cognitive processes underlying sentence parsing and production, how syntactic structures change over time, how they are interpreted, as well as formal syntactic theory. We use a variety of methodologies including:

Corpus analysis
Language acquisition studies
Psycholinguistic studies
Computational modeling

The lab complex consists of the following main areas:

Eye tracking lab in Swift 009B (run by Masaya Yoshida)
Self-paced reading lab in Swift 009A (run by Masaya Yoshida)
Sound-treated booths in Swift 007 (run by Masaya Yoshida)

Masaya Yoshida is interested the human sentence processor's ability to use already-seen materials to project not-yet-encountered sentence structures. His research on sentence processing attempts to reveal: (i) what are the mental representations that the parser employs (theoretical syntax), (ii) whether the detailed syntactic structures are fully represented by the parser (experimental sentence processing), and (iii) how such representations are built by the parser (computational studies).

Masaya Yoshida's research in the area of theoretical syntax has been devoted to the formal properties of ellipsis phenomena. Specifically, his research focuses on the identity condition on ellipsis through investigating Sluicing and Gapping constructions.

Learn more about the Grammar Group