scholarly journals Category Markers or Attributes

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 1287-1293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Keates ◽  
Susan A. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Category Membership ◽  
Count Noun ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Grammatical Form ◽  
Form Class ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Inductive Inferences ◽  
Test Objects

To clarify the role of labels in early induction, we compared 16-month-old infants' ( n = 114) generalization of target properties to test objects when objects were introduced by the experimenter in one of the following ways: (a) with a general attentional phrase, (b) highlighted with a flashlight and a general attentional phrase, (c) via a recorded voice that labeled the objects using a naming phrase, (d) with a label consisting of a count noun embedded within a naming phrase, (e) with a label consisting of a single word that was not marked as belonging to a particular grammatical form class, and (f) with a label consisting of an adjective. Infants relied on object labels to guide their inductive inferences only when the labels were presented referentially, embedded within an intentional naming phrase, and marked as count nouns. These results suggest that infants do not view labels as attributes of objects; rather, infants understand that count-noun labels are intentional markers denoting category membership.

scholarly journals Context sensitivity and the semantics of count nouns in the evaluation of partial objects by children and adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Kristen SYRETT ◽  
Athulya ARAVIND
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Context Dependence ◽  
Count Noun ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Conceptual Representations ◽  
Children's Behavior ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Adult Performance ◽  
Multiple Accounts

Abstract Previous research has documented that children count spatiotemporally-distinct partial objects as if they were whole objects. This behavior extends beyond counting to inclusion of partial objects in assessment and comparisons of quantities. Multiple accounts of this performance have been proposed: children and adults differ qualitatively in their conceptual representations, children lack the processing skills to immediately individuate entities in a given domain, or children cannot readily access relevant linguistic alternatives for the target count noun. We advance a new account, appealing to theoretical proposals about underspecification in nominal semantics and the role of the discourse context. Our results demonstrate that there are limits to which children allow partial objects to serve as wholes, and that under certain conditions, adult performance resembles that of children by allowing in partial objects. We propose that children's behavior is in fact licensed by the inherent context dependence of count nouns.

scholarly journals Word comprehension in temporal cortex and Wernicke area

Neurology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. e224-e233 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.-Marsel Mesulam ◽  
Benjamin M. Rader ◽  
Jaiashre Sridhar ◽  
Matthew J. Nelson ◽  
Jungmoon Hyun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Word Comprehension ◽  
Cerebrovascular Lesions ◽  
Core Components

ObjectiveTo explore atrophy–deficit correlations of word comprehension and repetition in temporoparietal cortices encompassing the Wernicke area, based on patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA).MethodsCortical thickness in regions within and outside the classical Wernicke area, measured by FreeSurfer, was correlated with repetition and single word comprehension scores in 73 right-handed patients at mild to moderate stages of PPA.ResultsAtrophy in the Wernicke area was correlated with repetition (r = 0.42, p = 0.001) but not single word comprehension (r = −0.072, p = 0.553). Correlations with word comprehension were confined to more anterior parts of the temporal lobe, especially its anterior third (r = 0.60, p < 0.001). A single case with postmortem autopsy illustrated preservation of word comprehension but not repetition 6 months prior to death despite nearly 50% loss of cortical volume and severe neurofibrillary degeneration in core components of the Wernicke area.ConclusionsTemporoparietal cortices containing the Wernicke area are critical for language repetition. Contrary to the formulations of classic aphasiology, their role in word and sentence comprehension is ancillary rather than critical. Thus, the Wernicke area is not sufficient to sustain word comprehension if the anterior temporal lobe is damaged. Traditional models of the role of the Wernicke area in comprehension are based almost entirely on patients with cerebrovascular lesions. Such lesions also cause deep white matter destruction and acute network diaschisis, whereas progressive neurodegenerative diseases associated with PPA do not. Conceptualizations of the Wernicke area that appear to conflict, therefore, can be reconciled by considering the hodologic and physiologic differences of the underlying lesions.

Role of Single Word Variables in Recall of Statistical Approximations to English

1966 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 627-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari J. K. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Free Recall ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Order Of Approximation ◽  
Single Word ◽  
First Order ◽  
Original Order ◽  
Sequential Organization ◽  
The Individual

Free recall of lists at different orders of approximation to English was compared to the recall of the same lists when the order of the words had been scrambled to destroy their sequential organization. Recall of the organized lists showed the typical improvement with increasing order of approximation. Recall of the scrambled lists was unrelated to the original order of approximation. The results indicate that increased recall with increasing order of approximation to English is not produced by systematic differences in the characteristics of the individual words comprising the approximations. When recall of the organized lists was scored in terms of the number of longer sequences present in recall, the number of recalled sequences of any given length increased as order of approximation to English increased, with the first order list showing proportionally less organization in recall than the second and higher order lists.

scholarly journals The Role of Elision in Evolutionary Processes

Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
María Azofra Sierra
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Category Membership ◽  
Evolutionary Processes ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Theoretical Overview

Changes by elision—as well as those due to processes of adfunctionalization or refunctionalization—must be taken into account as explanatory mechanisms of linguistic change. In this paper, we study the role of elision in the theoretical overview of explanatory theories of language change by focusing on the evolutionary process of the Spanish adverb aparte. We analyze the consequences of the elision of an initial construction for the development of new functions as an exceptive or additive adverb, and as an additive connector with a specific meaning, conditioned by the evolution of the entire construction. We find that, in this case, the ellipsis of a verbal element has led to important modifications of the preserved item (aparte), not only at the semantic-pragmatic and functional levels but also in its category membership.

Word, thought, and deed: The role of object categories in children's inductive inferences and exploratory play.

2008 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 1266-1276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura E. Schulz ◽  
Holly R. Standing ◽  
Elizabeth B. Bonawitz
Keyword(s):  
Object Categories ◽  
Exploratory Play ◽  
Inductive Inferences

A little goes a long way: evidence for a perceptual basis of learning for the noun categories COUNT and Mass

1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Maggie Perrin McPherson
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Count Noun ◽  
Mass Noun ◽  
Mass Nouns ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Distinct Individual ◽  
Syntactic Cues

ABSTRACTVarious theories of learning for the categories COUNT NOUN and MASS NOUN are compared. It is argued that children assign words to these categories on the basis of intuitions arising from perception that are relevant to Macnamara's (1986) semantic definitions of the categories. These definitions rest on the centrality of identity in the meaning of nouns and the centrality of individuation in the meaning of count nouns but not mass nouns. Empirical evidence is presented that supports the hypothesis that young children classify words as count nouns or mass nouns on the basis of perceptual information about the extension of the words, that is, whether or not the extension consists exclusively of enduring individuals whose discreteness from one another is perceptually salient (count nouns) or not (mass nouns). In an experiment, 48 children with a mean age of 2;10 (S.D. = 0;5) were taught a word for a kind of object (i.e. a perceptually distinct individual) or for a kind of substance (i.e. a collection of small granules). For some children the word was syntactically COUNT and for others it was syntactically MASS. Half of the children received incongruous perceptual and syntactic cues. For most of these children, classification of the word was guided by the object- or substance-like appearance of the stimulus despite the presence of incongruent syntactic cues. Syntactic cues influenced classification of the word for a minority of subjects, most of whom were among the oldest in the sample. It is concluded that perceptual information is critical in early decisions about membership in the categories COUNT NOUN and MASS NOUN.

scholarly journals Activating meaning in time: The role of imageability and form-class

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 471-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorraine K. Tyler ◽  
Helen E. Moss ◽  
Adam Galpin ◽  
J. Kate Voice
Keyword(s):  
Form Class

Count/mass category acquisition: distributional distinctions in children's speech

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Rote Learning ◽  
Rapid Acquisition ◽  
Mass Nouns ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Proposal A ◽  
Speech Data ◽  
Children's Speech

ABSTRACTThe count/mass distinction represents a categorical differentiation of nouns into count nouns which can be individuated when quantified (e.g. a car, several tables) and mass nouns which may not (cf. *a water, *several sands). The emergence of this distinction was examined in the longitudinal speech data of two children. In the first analysis, use of count nouns and mass nouns was compared in noun phrase contexts that require count nouns (e.g. a X, another X). It was found that from the earliest samples children used more count nouns in these contexts, hence showing a distributional distinction of noun types. This result suggests very rapid acquisition of count/mass subcategories. A series of further analyses assessed the possibility that early differentiation of count and mass nouns may be due to rote learning. No evidence was found for this proposal. A final analysis examined the development of a rule that requires that singular count nouns must be modified by a determiner. Acquisition here was found to be more protracted in nature since determiners are not used consistently in ‘telegraphic’ speech. Problems concerning the learnability of the obligatory determiner rule are discussed along with some speculations concerning the role of semantics in the acquisition of the count/mass distinction.

scholarly journals Voice Changes Meaning: The Role of Gay- Versus Straight-Sounding Voices in Sentence Interpretation

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 653-677
Author(s):  
Fabio Fasoli ◽  
Anne Maass ◽  
Rachel Karniol ◽  
Raquel Antonio ◽  
Simone Sulpizio
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Category Membership ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Subjective Meaning ◽  
Voice Changes ◽  
Stereotypical Behavior ◽  
Orientation Information ◽  
Sentence Interpretation

Utterances reveal not only semantic information but also information about the speaker’s social category membership, including sexual orientation. In four studies ( N = 345), we investigated how the meaning of what is being said changes as a function of the speaker’s voice. In Studies 1a/1b, gay- and straight-sounding voices uttered the same sentences. Listeners indicated the likelihood that the speaker was referring to one among two target objects varying along gender-stereotypical characteristics. Listeners envisaged a more “feminine” object when the sentence was uttered by a gay-sounding speaker, and a more “masculine” object when the speaker sounded heterosexual. In Studies 2a/2b, listeners were asked to disambiguate sentences that involved a stereotypical behavior and were open to different interpretations. Listeners disambiguated the sentences by interpreting the action in relation to sexual-orientation information conveyed by voice. Results show that the speaker’s voice changes the subjective meaning of sentences, aligning it to gender-stereotypical expectations.

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