Syntactic processing models and their implications for the study of language

Abstract

Understanding how language is processed has been a theme of an utmost interest for psycholinguistics for several decades, since fully acknowledging the processes involved contributes not only to the study of language, but also to both the study and understanding of the mind. This article presents a review of syntactic parsing models and their contributions to the comprehension of the functioning of language and cognition. First of all, some of the classical discussions about language processing and cognitive processes in general are analyzed. Secondly, different models of syntactic parsing proposed in the last decades as well as their characteristics and assumptions about the language faculty are reviewed. Finally, the different proposals are compared in terms of the classical debates presented and their position on the universality of certain cognitive processes.