Investigating coordination of lexical and structural information cross-linguistically

Sentence production requires selection of lexical items and structural frames, and coordination of the two in accordance with the grammar. There are two accounts of how lexical-structural coordination occurs: a lexical account and a structural account, which differ in the relative contributions that words and syntax make to early sentence formulation. A lexical account suggests that lexical items control the formulation of sentence structures. On the other hand, a structural account suggests that structural frameworks control lexical items; speakers generate a rudimentary syntactic plan from their construal of an event, and use this structural information to control the timing of subsequent lexical retrieval.;My dissertation research investigates how English and Korean speakers integrate lexical and structural information. The three primary questions that my research investigates are: Is selection of verbs necessary for sentence planning?; What factors affect speakers' choice of subject and sentence structures?; How do eye-movements relate to speakers' linguistic choice? My investigation of these questions makes use of experimental methods such as real-time eye-tracking paradigm and statistical techniques such as mixed-effects models.;My results show that the mechanisms of lexical-structural coordination interact with grammatical properties of a language. In English --- a language with fixed word order where grammatical functions such as the subject/object are highly correlated with word order (e.g., the first noun is almost always the subject in English) --- lexical items can preside over the coordination process. In contrast, in Korean --- a language with flexible word order where grammatical functions are indicated by case particles --- structural frameworks guide the coordination process.;By integrating two distinct fields in the study of language --- grammar and production via cross-linguistic research --- my research aims to improve our understanding of language processing beyond what studies of English alone could achieve, and contributes to the development of psycholinguistic theories that can accommodate language-specific processes.