Chunking and Structural Complexity of Linguistic Units
Cai Zhenguan · Shijie hanyu jiaoxue · 2009
It has been proposed that the limit of the short-term memory is 7±2 chunks. More recent research (Cowan,2000) has further proposed that our focal attention has the capacity of only 4 chunks. In the present paper,we argue that sentence parsing is a process of chunking,i.e.,linguistic units are chunked so as to avoid increasing burden on short-term (working) memory. In accordance with Cowan (2000),we propose that the processor tries to keep the chunks in the working memory under 4. When there are less than 4 discrete chunks,the processor adopts a late chunking strategy so as not to make wrong chunking; when there are more than 4 discrete chunks,the processor adopts an early chunking strategy to lessen the burden on the human working memory. The paper provides a starting point for further research on structural complexity quantification.