The Importance of semantics and syntax in sentence recall

which role (semantic or syntactic) plays the more important part in language processing (Alloway & Gathercole, 2005). Some researchers argue that structural processing (syntax) is the essential part of language processing, while others claim that research is "converging on [the] primary role of complex entities of meaning in language processing, acquisition, and breakdown ( van Lancker, 2001, pp. 355).
             Language serves the important function of allowing humans to express their ideas, thoughts and emotions by making use of the "components" (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics) to reach their intended goals (van Lancker, 2001). Both syntax and semantics are key contributors to the overall comprehension of a sentence, but should generally only interact during times when one can provide information to the other that will ultimately help reduce the number of choices being considered during the sentence comprehension process (Mahesh, 1994).
             In the English language there are a certain classes of words that can be substituted into a variety of positions in a sentence (Miller & Isard, 1963). Because of this, when a person hears a sentence their "response at each position can be limited to a choice from the appropriate class, rather than from the total vocabulary of English (Miller & Isard, 1963, pp. 218). Steve Farrow also argues that we assign words (or morphemes) to word classes on the basis of which other words they depend on, and that words are selected from these classes and combined in sentences, with some words being more likely to occur together than others ( Farrow, 1994).
             According to Harrington and Dennis, structural priming supports this idea in that it is the "tendency to unconsciously generalize recently spoken or heard syntactic structures to subsequent sentences" (2003, pp.15). When the listener is unable to clearly comprehend the phrase structuring of a sentence, their ability to u...

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