Many languages have verbal stems like hug and marry whose intransitive realization is interpreted as reciprocal. Previous semantic analyses of such reciprocal intransitives rely on the assumption of symmetric participation. Thus, 'Sam and Julia hugged' is assumed to entail both 'Sam hugged Julia' and 'Julia hugged Sam'. In this paper we report experimental results that go against this assumption. It is shown that although symmetric participation is likely to be preferred by speakers, it is not a necessary condition for accepting sentences with reciprocal verbs. To analyze the reciprocal alternation, we propose that symmetric participation is a typical feature connecting the meanings of reciprocal and binary forms. This accounts for the optionality as well as to the preference of this feature. Further, our results show that agent intentionality often boosts the acceptability of sentences with reciprocal verbs. Accordingly, we propose that intentionality is another typical semantic feature of such verbs, separate from symmetric participation.
{"title":"Reciprocal predicates: a prototype model","authors":"I. Kruitwagen, Yoad Winter, J. Hampton","doi":"10.3765/elm.1.4868","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.1.4868","url":null,"abstract":"Many languages have verbal stems like hug and marry whose intransitive realization is interpreted as reciprocal. Previous semantic analyses of such reciprocal intransitives rely on the assumption of symmetric participation. Thus, 'Sam and Julia hugged' is assumed to entail both 'Sam hugged Julia' and 'Julia hugged Sam'. In this paper we report experimental results that go against this assumption. It is shown that although symmetric participation is likely to be preferred by speakers, it is not a necessary condition for accepting sentences with reciprocal verbs. To analyze the reciprocal alternation, we propose that symmetric participation is a typical feature connecting the meanings of reciprocal and binary forms. This accounts for the optionality as well as to the preference of this feature. Further, our results show that agent intentionality often boosts the acceptability of sentences with reciprocal verbs. Accordingly, we propose that intentionality is another typical semantic feature of such verbs, separate from symmetric participation.","PeriodicalId":154565,"journal":{"name":"Experiments in Linguistic Meaning","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130529117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper presents experimental evidence for overspecification of small cardinalities in refer-ence production. The idea is that when presented with a small set of unique objects (2, 3 or 4), the speaker includes a small cardinality while describing given objects, although it is overin-formative for the hearer (e.g., 'three stars'). On the contrary, when presented with a large set of unique objects, the speaker does not include cardinality in their description – so she produces a bare plural (e.g. 'stars'). The effect of overspecifying small cardinalities resembles the effect of overspecifying color in reference production which has been extensively studied in recent years (cf. Rubio-Fernandez 2016, Tarenskeen et al. 2015). When slides are flashed on the screen one by one, highlighted objects are still overspecified. We argue that one of the main reasons lies in subitizing effect, which is a human capacity to instantaneously grasp small cardinalities.
本文给出了参考文献生成中小基数过规范的实验证据。这个想法是，当呈现一小组独特的物体(2,3或4)时，说话者在描述给定物体时包含了一个小基数，尽管它对听者来说过于信息化(例如，“三颗星”)。相反，当面对一大堆独特的物体时，说话者不会在描述中包含基数——所以她会产生一个简单的复数(例如;“明星”)。过度指定小基数的影响类似于近年来被广泛研究的参考生产中过度指定颜色的影响(参见Rubio-Fernandez 2016, Tarenskeen et al. 2015)。当幻灯片在屏幕上一个接一个地闪烁时，高亮显示的对象仍然是过度指定的。我们认为，其中一个主要原因在于主观效应，这是一种人类瞬间掌握小基数的能力。
{"title":"Overspecification of small cardinalities in reference production","authors":"Natalia Zevakhina, Elena Pasalskaya","doi":"10.3765/ELM.1.4858","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/ELM.1.4858","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents experimental evidence for overspecification of small cardinalities in refer-ence production. The idea is that when presented with a small set of unique objects (2, 3 or 4), the speaker includes a small cardinality while describing given objects, although it is overin-formative for the hearer (e.g., 'three stars'). On the contrary, when presented with a large set of unique objects, the speaker does not include cardinality in their description – so she produces a bare plural (e.g. 'stars'). The effect of overspecifying small cardinalities resembles the effect of overspecifying color in reference production which has been extensively studied in recent years (cf. Rubio-Fernandez 2016, Tarenskeen et al. 2015). When slides are flashed on the screen one by one, highlighted objects are still overspecified. We argue that one of the main reasons lies in subitizing effect, which is a human capacity to instantaneously grasp small cardinalities.","PeriodicalId":154565,"journal":{"name":"Experiments in Linguistic Meaning","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127989541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although perspectival expressions are a diverse group, they share a common property: their meanings depend on the perspective of a discourse-given individual whose identity is under-specified. This paper investigates how perspective holder prominence is determined through a series of forced choice experiments on American English motion verbs exploring a number of discourse factors: definiteness, mention order, topicality, and subjecthood. The results suggest that both global and local prominence effects play a role in determining how perspectival motion verbs are interpreted.
{"title":"Coming in, or going out? Measuring the effect of discourse factors on perspective prominence","authors":"Carolyn Jane Anderson","doi":"10.3765/elm.1.4865","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.1.4865","url":null,"abstract":"Although perspectival expressions are a diverse group, they share a common property: their meanings depend on the perspective of a discourse-given individual whose identity is under-specified. This paper investigates how perspective holder prominence is determined through a series of forced choice experiments on American English motion verbs exploring a number of discourse factors: definiteness, mention order, topicality, and subjecthood. The results suggest that both global and local prominence effects play a role in determining how perspectival motion verbs are interpreted.","PeriodicalId":154565,"journal":{"name":"Experiments in Linguistic Meaning","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128937345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The question of how and when children learn to associate clause type with its canonical function, or speech act, is currently unknown. It is widely observed that declaratives tend to result in assertions, interrogatives in questions, and imperatives in requests. Although such canonical links between clause type and speech acts are principled, they are known to be defeasible. In this corpus study, we investigate how parents talk to their children in the first years of life, and ask how their input might support this mapping, and to what extent it might pose difficulties. We find that the expected link between clause type and speech act is robust in the input, particularly between declaratives and assertions, both of which also occur most frequently. In addition, the non-canonical mappings that do occur are characterized formally, e.g., non-interrogative questions nearly always exhibit rising prosody, and non-imperative requests often contain a modal.
{"title":"Clause types and speech acts in speech to children","authors":"Anissa Zaitsu, J. Wehbe, V. Hacquard, J. Lidz","doi":"10.3765/elm.1.4886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.1.4886","url":null,"abstract":"The question of how and when children learn to associate clause type with its canonical function, or speech act, is currently unknown. It is widely observed that declaratives tend to result in assertions, interrogatives in questions, and imperatives in requests. Although such canonical links between clause type and speech acts are principled, they are known to be defeasible. In this corpus study, we investigate how parents talk to their children in the first years of life, and ask how their input might support this mapping, and to what extent it might pose difficulties. We find that the expected link between clause type and speech act is robust in the input, particularly between declaratives and assertions, both of which also occur most frequently. In addition, the non-canonical mappings that do occur are characterized formally, e.g., non-interrogative questions nearly always exhibit rising prosody, and non-imperative requests often contain a modal.","PeriodicalId":154565,"journal":{"name":"Experiments in Linguistic Meaning","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128971735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Comparative-modified numerals (CMNs) and superlative-modified numerals (SMNs) are reported to exhibit a polarity sensitivity contrast: unlike CMNs, the use of SMNs is said to be sensitive to embedding under negation. This contrast is however neither well studied nor well understood, such that the existing views in the literature disagree vastly on both the basic facts and related expectations. In this paper we investigate this contrast in three offline experiments. We show that there is strong empirical support for this reported contrast under negation, but none of the existing analyses of the contrast can capture it in full, though we do seem to require insights from each.
{"title":"Superlative-modified numerals and negation: A multiply negotiable cost","authors":"Teodora Mihoc, Kathryn Davidson","doi":"10.3765/elm.1.4860","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.1.4860","url":null,"abstract":"Comparative-modified numerals (CMNs) and superlative-modified numerals (SMNs) are reported to exhibit a polarity sensitivity contrast: unlike CMNs, the use of SMNs is said to be sensitive to embedding under negation. This contrast is however neither well studied nor well understood, such that the existing views in the literature disagree vastly on both the basic facts and related expectations. In this paper we investigate this contrast in three offline experiments. We show that there is strong empirical support for this reported contrast under negation, but none of the existing analyses of the contrast can capture it in full, though we do seem to require insights from each.","PeriodicalId":154565,"journal":{"name":"Experiments in Linguistic Meaning","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124305126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Young children can reason about direct and indirect visual information, but fully mapping this understanding to linguistic forms encoding the two knowledge sources appears to come later in development. In English, perception verbs with small clause complements ('I saw something happen') report direct perception of an event, while perception verbs with sentential complements ('I saw that something happened') can report inferences about an event. In two experiments, we ask when 4-9-year-old English-speaking children have linked the conceptual distinction between direct perception and inference to different complements expressing this distinction. We find that, unlike older children or adults, 4-6-year-olds do not recognize that see with a sentential complement can report visually-based inference, even when syntactic and contextual cues make inference interpretations highly salient. These results suggest a prolonged developmental trajectory for learning how the syntax of perception verbs like see maps to their semantics.
幼儿可以对直接和间接的视觉信息进行推理，但将这种理解完全映射到编码这两种知识来源的语言形式似乎是在发育的后期。在英语中，带有小从句补语的感知动词(“I saw something happened”)表示对事件的直接感知，而带有句子补语的感知动词(“I saw that something happened”)可以表示对事件的推断。在两个实验中，我们询问4-9岁的英语儿童何时将直接感知和推理之间的概念区别与表达这种区别的不同补语联系起来。我们发现，与年龄较大的儿童或成人不同，4-6岁的儿童没有意识到用句子补语看可以报告基于视觉的推理，即使句法和上下文线索使推理解释非常突出。这些结果表明，学习感知动词(如see)的语法如何映射到它们的语义是一个漫长的发展轨迹。
{"title":"Seeing vs. Seeing That: Children's Understanding of Direct Perception and Inference Reports","authors":"E. Davis, B. Landau","doi":"10.3765/elm.1.4864","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.1.4864","url":null,"abstract":"Young children can reason about direct and indirect visual information, but fully mapping this understanding to linguistic forms encoding the two knowledge sources appears to come later in development. In English, perception verbs with small clause complements ('I saw something happen') report direct perception of an event, while perception verbs with sentential complements ('I saw that something happened') can report inferences about an event. In two experiments, we ask when 4-9-year-old English-speaking children have linked the conceptual distinction between direct perception and inference to different complements expressing this distinction. We find that, unlike older children or adults, 4-6-year-olds do not recognize that see with a sentential complement can report visually-based inference, even when syntactic and contextual cues make inference interpretations highly salient. These results suggest a prolonged developmental trajectory for learning how the syntax of perception verbs like see maps to their semantics.","PeriodicalId":154565,"journal":{"name":"Experiments in Linguistic Meaning","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123672344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper reports on a study that uses a novel methodology, the minimal part identification task, in order to probe the relationship between morphosyntax and interpretation. English, Korean and Mandarin Chinese differ from one another with regard to the count/mass distinction. Building on prior research but using a new methodology, this study examines whether speakers of these three languages also differ in how they interpret count vs. mass nouns. The findings, while uncovering some language-specific effects of morphosyntax, point to the importance of universality, and suggest that interpretation drives morphosyntax rather than the other way around.
{"title":"What's the smallest part of spinach? A new experimental approach to the count/mass distinction","authors":"Sea Hee Choi, T. Ionin","doi":"10.3765/elm.1.4867","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.1.4867","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reports on a study that uses a novel methodology, the minimal part identification task, in order to probe the relationship between morphosyntax and interpretation. English, Korean and Mandarin Chinese differ from one another with regard to the count/mass distinction. Building on prior research but using a new methodology, this study examines whether speakers of these three languages also differ in how they interpret count vs. mass nouns. The findings, while uncovering some language-specific effects of morphosyntax, point to the importance of universality, and suggest that interpretation drives morphosyntax rather than the other way around.","PeriodicalId":154565,"journal":{"name":"Experiments in Linguistic Meaning","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116794856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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