Hierarchical and sequential processing of language: A response to: Ding, Melloni, Tian, and Poeppel (2017). Rule-based and word-level statistics-based processing of language: insights from neuroscience. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience.

摘要

Ding etal. (2017) contrast their view that language processing is based on hierarchical syntactic structures, to a view that relies on word-level input statistics. In this response to their paper, we clarify how, exactly, the two views differ (and how they do not), and make a case for the importance of sequential, as opposed to hierarchical, structure for language processing.