parallel processingn
information processing in which two or more processing operations are
carried out at the same time or in parallel, such as when people try to
remember a word and search for its meaning, spelling and pronunciation at
the same time. This may be compared with sequential processing, where the
two pieces of information are processed in sequence, such as when one tries
to listen to two simultaneous conversations by attending to both but going
back and forth rapidly from one to the other.
parameter^1 n
(in generative theory) an abstract grammatical category that controls
several superficially unrelated surface syntactic properties. For example, the
head parameterdetermines whether a language positions thehead of a phrase
before or after its complement^2. A head-first language(English is one) is one
in which heads normally precede their complements. A head-last language
(Japanese is one) is one in which heads normally follow their complements.
see also pro-drop parameter
parameter^2 n
a numerical value that summarizes a population, such as population
mean (m), population variance (s) and population standard deviation (s^2 ).
The Greek alphabet letters are used to denote parameters.
see also statistic
parameter-resettingn
see parameter-setting
parameter-settingn
the process by which children determine what setting of a parameteris
appropriate for the one they are learning. In second language acquisi-
tion, parameter-setting is more appropriately considered to be parameter-
resetting(since learners already have parameter-settings initially established
for their first language).
parametric testsn
a group of statistical procedures based on the assumptions that the data
are normally distributed and are measured on an intervalorratio scale.
Examples of parametric tests include t-test, analysis of variance, and
Pearson product-moment correlation.
paraphrasen, v
an expression of the meaning of a word or phrase using other words or
phrases, often in an attempt to make the meaning easier to understand. For
parallel processing