Why-questions and focus in Italian

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Beltrame ◽  
Cristiano Chesi
Keyword(s):  
Forced Choice ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Thematic Structure ◽  
Reference Set ◽  
Relevant Reference ◽  
Judgment Study ◽  
Forced Choice Tasks ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Choice Tasks ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

Abstract In this study we argue that the appropriateness of an answer to a why-question, potentially bearing on multiple contrast classes, is mainly influenced by the focalized argument, which identifies the relevant reference set. The focalization structure, however, interacts in a non-trivial way with the thematic structure and its accessibility, suggesting a general (independent) prominence of the direct object (DO) over the indirect one (IO). In correlation to that, we also observed that DO appears more resistant to extraction compared to IO, while it seems felicitous in a post-IO focalized low position (light NP-shifting). These contrasts are obtained by running five distinct experiments in Italian targeting various dislocation configurations: Four forced choice tasks manipulating leftward dislocation (i) clefting versus (ii) fronting versus (iii) clitic left dislocation and (iv) postverbal reordering (canonical DO IO order vs. IO DO) in ditransitive predicates. Then (v) an acceptability judgment study was administered to assess the difficulty in figuring out a licensing context coherent with the argument ordering, provided in the why-question. To minimize the interacting factors, all sentences included null subjects and a context was provided for each experimental item in the forced choice tasks, introducing the relevant contrast classes.

scholarly journals Adults’ and Children’s Comprehension of Linguistic Disjunction

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Masoud Jasbi ◽  
Michael C. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Forced Choice ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Mutual Knowledge ◽  
Existential Sentences ◽  
Alternative Hypotheses ◽  
Pragmatic Reasoning ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Forced Choice Tasks ◽  
Choice Tasks ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge

Disjunction has played a major role in advancing theories of logic, language, and cognition, featuring as the centerpiece of debates on the origins and development of logical thought. Recent studies have argued that due to non-adult-like pragmatic reasoning, preschool children’s comprehension of linguistic disjunction differs from adults in two ways. First, children are more likely to interpret “or” as “and” (conjunctive interpretations); Second, children are more likely to consider a disjunction as inclusive (lack of exclusivity implicatures). We tested adults and children’s comprehension of disjunction in existential sentences using two and three-alternative forced choice tasks, and analyzed children’s spontaneous verbal reactions prior to their forced-choice judgments. Overall our results are compatible with studies that suggest children understand the basic truth-conditional semantics of disjunction. Children did not interpret “or” as “and”, supporting studies that argue conjunctive interpretations are due to task demands. In addition, even though our forced-choice tasks suggest children interpreted disjunction as inclusive, spontaneous verbal reactions showed that children were sensitive to the adult-like pragmatics of disjunction. Theoretically, these studies provide evidence against previous developmental accounts, and lend themselves to two alternative hypotheses. First, that preschool children’s pragmatic knowledge is more adult-like than previously assumed, but forced-choice judgments are not sensitive enough to capture this knowledge. Second, children may have the knowledge of the relevant lexical scale themselves, but be uncertain whether a new speaker also has this knowledge (mutual knowledge of the scale).

Estimating discrimination performance in two-alternative forced choice tasks: Routines for MATLAB and R

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 1157-1174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin M. Bausenhart ◽  
Oliver Dyjas ◽  
Dirk Vorberg ◽  
Rolf Ulrich
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Performance ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Forced Choice Tasks ◽  
Choice Tasks

scholarly journals Robust versus optimal strategies for two-alternative forced choice tasks

2010 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Zacksenhouse ◽  
R. Bogacz ◽  
P. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Optimal Strategies ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Forced Choice Tasks ◽  
Choice Tasks

scholarly journals A detection theoretic explanation of blindsight suggests a link between conscious perception and metacognition

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1594) ◽  
pp. 1401-1411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiaki Ko ◽  
Hakwan Lau
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Signal Detection Theory ◽  
Computational Simulation ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Simulation Data ◽  
Visual Tasks ◽  
Trial Basis ◽  
Forced Choice Tasks ◽  
Choice Tasks ◽  
Confidence Ratings

Blindsight refers to the rare ability of V1-damaged patients to perform visual tasks such as forced-choice discrimination, even though these patients claim not to consciously see the relevant stimuli. This striking phenomenon can be described in the formal terms of signal detection theory. (i) Blindsight patients use an unusually conservative criterion to detect targets. (ii) In discrimination tasks, their confidence ratings are low and (iii) such confidence ratings poorly predict task accuracy on a trial-by-trial basis. (iv) Their detection capacity ( d ′) is lower than expected based on their performance in forced-choice tasks. We propose a unifying explanation that accounts for these features: that blindsight is due to a failure to represent and update the statistical information regarding the internal visual neural response, i.e. a failure in metacognition. We provide computational simulation data to demonstrate that this model can qualitatively account for the detection theoretic features of blindsight. Because such metacognitive mechanisms are likely to depend on the prefrontal cortex, this suggests that although blindsight is typically due to damage to the primary visual cortex, distal influence to the prefrontal cortex by such damage may be critical. Recent brain imaging evidence supports this view.

scholarly journals An Experimental Approach to Basic Word Order in Turkish Intransitives

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-91
Author(s):  
Engin Arik
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Rating Scales ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Acceptability Judgments ◽  
Forced Choice Tasks ◽  
Choice Tasks ◽  
Order Four ◽  
Main Effects ◽  
Agglutinative Language

Abstract This study offers an experimental perspective to investigate the word order and animacy effects of intransitives in Turkish, an agglutinative language with a canonical, flexible Subject-Object-Verb order. Four experiments were conducted to investigate a total of 528 Turkish speakers’ acceptability judgments using rating scales (Experiments 1 and 3; 7-point Likert scales) and forced choice tasks (Experiments 2 and 4; choosing one of two sentences) for various orders of linguistic forms in a simple intransitive sentence. Results from scalar acceptability judgments showed that there were significant main effects of order and subject, indicating that participants gave significantly higher ratings to SV sentences than VS sentences and that their ratings changed significantly according to the animacy of the subjects. Results from the forced choice tasks showed that participants preferred SV sentences to VS sentences. These findings suggest that Turkish speakers prefer SV order over VS order even though both are readily available.

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