Everyday talk informs toddlers’ novel verb generalizations

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 404-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Everyday Talk ◽  
Intransitive Verbs

This study explores the effects of discourse context on a child’s ability to generalize transitively trained novel verbs in an experimental setting and the ability to diversely use intransitive constructions in everyday talk. Two- and three-year-olds participated in novel verb training and play sessions. An effect of discourse context was found; novel verbs were used most often in training, rather than elicitation. Thirty percent of the children generalized a transitively trained novel verb to an intransitive construction. The generalizing children differed from non-generalizers in the proportion with which they used familiar intransitive verbs diversely during play. Thus, the process through which children come to generalize verbs may be influenced by their everyday verb usage on a construction by construction basis.

Real-life pseudo-passives: The usage and discourse functions of adjunct-based passive constructions

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-57
Author(s):  
Joanna Podhorodecka
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Multiple Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Statistical Tools ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Intransitive Verbs

Abstract The aim of this study is to examine the usage of adjunct-based prepositional passives of intransitive verbs. The occurrence of this highly atypical construction, referred to as the pseudo-passive, is motivated by a variety of factors related to its individual components as well as the discourse context. The pseudo-passive is first characterized in terms of its most characteristic verbs and prepositions. Then three main types of the construction are distinguished on the basis of their subject semantics and discourse function, which correlate with specific syntactic and semantic features observed in the data. The study relies on statistical tools for the analysis of the corpus data: collostructional analysis, multiple correspondence analysis and logistic regression.

On the Non-Unified Nature of Scalar Implicature: An Empirical Investigation

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Baker ◽  
Ryan Doran ◽  
Yaron McNabb ◽  
Meredith Larson ◽  
Gregory Ward
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Scalar Implicature ◽  
Conversational Implicature ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Scalar Implicatures ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Scale Type ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Scale Types

AbstractScalar implicaure is often offered as the exemplar of generalized conversational implicature. However, despite the wealth of literature devoted to both the phenomenon in general and to specific examples, little attention has been paid to the various factors that may influence the generation and interpretation of scalar implicatures. This study employs the “Literal Lucy” methodology developed in Larson et al. (in press) to further investigate these factors in a controlled experimental setting. The results of our empirical investigation suggest that the type of scale employed affects whether or not speakers judge a particular scalar implicature to be part of the truth-conditional meaning of an utterance. Moreover, we found that features of the conversational context in which the implicature is situated also play an important role. Specifically, we have found that the number of scalar values evoked in the discourse context plays a significant role in the interpretation of scalar implicatures generated from gradable adjective scales but not other scale types. With respect to the effects of scale type, we have found that gradable adjectives were less frequently incorporated into truth-conditional meaning than cardinals, quantificational items, and ranked orderings. Additionally, ranked orderings were incorporated less than cardinals. Thus, the results from the current study show that the interpretation of scalar implicature is sensitive to both the associated scale type and discourse context.

Strength of Discourse Context as a Determinant of the Subordinate Bias Effect

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Martin ◽  
Hoang Vu ◽  
George Kellas ◽  
Kimberly Metcalf
Keyword(s):  
Bias Effect ◽  
Discourse Context

Effects of Accounting-Method Choices on Subjective Performance-Measure Weighting Decisions: Experimental Evidence on Precision and Error Covariance

2005 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 1163-1192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranjani Krishnan ◽  
Joan L. Luft ◽  
Michael D. Shields
Keyword(s):  
Performance Measures ◽  
Error Variance ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Performance Measure ◽  
Incentive System ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Error Covariance ◽  
Psychology Theory ◽  
Optimal Weighting ◽  
Similarity And Difference

Performance-measure weights for incentive compensation are often determined subjectively. Determining these weights is a cognitively difficult task, and archival research shows that observed performance-measure weights are only partially consistent with the predictions of agency theory. Ittner et al. (2003) have concluded that psychology theory can help to explain such inconsistencies. In an experimental setting based on Feltham and Xie (1994), we use psychology theories of reasoning to predict distinctive patterns of similarity and difference between optimal and actual subjective performance-measure weights. The following predictions are supported. First, in contrast to a number of prior studies, most individuals' decisions are significantly influenced by the performance measures' error variance (precision) and error covariance. Second, directional errors in the use of these measurement attributes are relatively frequent, resulting in a mean underreaction to an accounting change that alters performance measurement error. Third, individuals seem insufficiently aware that a change in the accounting for one measure has spillover effects on the optimal weighting of the other measure in a two-measure incentive system. In consequence, they make performance-measure weighting decisions that are likely to result in misallocations of agent effort.

Speech Acts in Discourse Context

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craige Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Consensus View ◽  
Grammatical Mood ◽  
The Relationship

This essay sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. The conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause in which it occurs, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to a particular type of speech act, i.e. one of the three basic types of language game moves—making an assertion (declarative), posing a question (interrogative), or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). There is relative consensus about the semantics of two of these, the declarative and interrogative; and this consensus view is entirely compatible with the present proposal about the relationship between the semantics and pragmatics of grammatical mood. Hence, the proposal is illustrated with the more controversial imperative.

Comparison with an indeterminate pronoun

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osamu Sawada
Keyword(s):  
Scale Structure ◽  
Dual Use ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Individual Comparison ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Striking Parallelism

Chapter 4 focuses on the dual-use phenomenon of comparison with an indeterminate pronoun in Japanese (and other languages) and considers the similarities and differences between at-issue comparative meaning (i.e. individual comparison) and a CI comparative meaning (i.e. noteworthy comparison). Although an individual comparison and a noteworthy comparison are compositionally and dimensionally different, there is a striking parallelism in terms of the scale structure. The chapter explains the similarities and differences between the two kinds of comparison in a systematic way. It also considers the role of scalarity and comparison in a discourse context and argues that they provide a way of signaling to what extent an at-issue utterance contributes to the goal of the conversation. The timing of signaling information on noteworthiness in a discourse and its pragmatic effect are also discussed.

Discourse, Context, and Coherence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Una Stojnić
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Pure Indexicals

On the received view, the resolution of context-sensitivity is at least partly determined by non-linguistic features of utterance situation. If I say ‘He’s happy’, what ‘he’ picks out is underspecified by its linguistic meaning, and is only fixed through extra-linguistic supplementation: the speaker’s intention, and/or some objective, non-linguistic feature of the utterance situation. This underspecification is exhibited by most context-sensitive expressions, with the exception of pure indexicals, like ‘I.’ While this received view is prima facie appealing, I argue it is deeply mistaken. I defend an account according to which context-sensitivity resolution is governed by linguistic mechanisms determining prominence of candidate resolutions of context-sensitive items. Thus, on this account, the linguistic meaning of a context-sensitive expression fully specifies its resolution in a context, automatically selecting the resolution antecedently set by the prominence-governing linguistic mechanisms.

Active Participles in Hittite

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-117
Author(s):  
Ekaterina A. Lyutikova ◽  
Andrei V. Sideltsev
Keyword(s):  
Intransitive Verbs

Abstract The paper reassesses the evidence for active transitive participles in Hittite and suggests that they are in reality formed from the unergative class of intransitive verbs.

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