scholarly journals Resolving ambiguous polarity stripping ellipsis structures in Persian

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vahideh Rasekhi ◽  
Jesse Harris
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
English Studies ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Direct Objects ◽  
Locality Information

Previous studies have shown that English speakers use a range of factors including locality, information structure, and semantic parallelism to interpret clausal ellipsis structures. Yet, the relative importance of each factor is currently underexplored. As cues to information structure and semantic parallelism are often implicit in English, we turned to Persian which marks information structure overtly via word order scrambling and uses the -rā morpheme to indicate definiteness/specificity on direct objects. To determine what strategies Persian speakers use to disambiguate clausal ellipsis, we conducted a naturalness rating study and sentence completion task on polarity stripping structures. Our results show that information structure and parallelism strongly influence correlate resolution in both tasks, but that a weaker preference for a local correlate emerges in scrambling in the sentence completion task. As these results diverge from those obtained in English studies, we speculate that the morphosyntactic properties of Persian constrain the strategies the processer uses in selecting a contrastive correlate and resolving ambiguity in stripping ellipsis.

Uneven reassembly of tense, telicity and discourse features in L2 acquisition of the Chinese shì … de cleft construction by adult English speakers

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziyin Mai ◽  
Boping Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Cross Domain ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Feature Reassembly ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Ranking Task

This article reports an empirical study investigating L2 acquisition of the Mandarin Chinese shì … de cleft construction by adult English-speaking learners within the framework of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2009). A Sentence Completion task, an interpretation task, two Acceptability Judgement tasks, and a felicity ranking task were administered to learners with intermediate and advanced Chinese proficiency ( n = 76). The results reveal an initial mapping between the target Chinese structure and the English it-cleft construction. The relevant tense, telicity and discourse features are added in an uneven feature-by-feature manner in the subsequent feature reassembly. It is proposed that feature reassembly tasks involving cross-domain operations (e.g. from prosody to syntax) are more complicated and more difficult to accomplish than those taking place within the same linguistic domain.

The effects of information structure in the processing of word order variation in the second language

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832199246
Author(s):  
Priscila López-Beltrán ◽  
Michael A Johns ◽  
Paola E Dussias ◽  
Cristóbal Lozano ◽  
Alfonso Palma
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Online Processing ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Order Constraints ◽  
Structure Patterns

Traditionally, it has been claimed that the non-canonical word order of passives makes them inherently more difficult to comprehend than their canonical active counterparts both in the first (L1) and second language (L2). However, growing evidence suggests that non-canonical word orders are not inherently more difficult to process than canonical counterparts when presented with discourse contexts that license their information structure constraints. In an eye-tracking experiment, we investigated the effect of information structure on the online processing of active and passive constructions and whether this effect differed in monolinguals and L1-Spanish–L2-English speakers. In line with previous corpus studies, our results indicated that there was an interaction between word order and information structure according to which passive sentences were much more costly to process with new–given information structure patterns. Crucially, we failed to find evidence that the effect of information structure on word order constraints in comprehension differed between monolingual and L2 speakers.

Verb morphology in speakers with agrammatic aphasia

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Marusch ◽  
Lena Ann Jäger ◽  
Frank Burchert ◽  
Lyndsey Nickels
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Completion ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Assembly Model ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Agrammatic Aphasia ◽  
Irregular Verbs ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Production Accuracy

Abstract This paper reports an investigation of the production of verb morphology in English speakers with agrammatic aphasia. Our main goal was to test four accounts of the processing of (ir-)regularity by quantifying regularity using affix type and the presence or absence of stem changes. Production accuracy of regular, mixed and two types of irregular past participles (irregular 1, irregular 2) was tested in English using a sentence completion task with a group of five speakers with agrammatic aphasia. The results showed significant effects on production accuracy of whether the verb required a stem change and of time reference frame but no effect of affix type: past participles that required stem changes (mixed and irregular 2 past participles) were more difficult to produce than past participles that did not change their stem (regular and irregular 1 past participles). Moreover, the production of present continuous forms was more accurate compared to past participle forms. These results suggest that a categorical conception of regular versus irregular is over-simplified, as accuracy was best predicted by stem change rather than by regularity. This is a finding most consistent with the Stem-based Assembly model. The results of this study have implications for the design and selection of stimuli in future experiments: Experimental stimuli need to be controlled for stem changes and affix type rather than assuming that irregular verbs are homogeneous.

Individual differences in lexical repetition priming: the combined influence of language, mood and working memory capacity.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolas Pautz ◽  
Kevin Durrheim
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Repetition Priming ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Primary Language ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Word Stem Completion

Individual differences in repetition priming is an often-overlooked area of research. The importance of this neglect becomes evident when considering the criticisms that priming research has received in the last decade concerning reliability. The current researched aimed to investigate whether individual differences in working memory capacity and affective states have differential effects on lexical-semantic repetition priming outcomes based on whether participants were first or second English speakers. Using logistic mixed-effects models to account for subject variation, the current paper investigated a three-way interaction between working memory capacity, negative affect score, and language on repetition priming outcomes. The results indicate that a statistically significant three-way interaction exists. We present an argument which posits that an individual’s primary language and subsequent familiarity with the primed concepts, in conjunction with individual differences in working memory capacity and mood, plays an important role in determining the most effective strategy used to complete a word-stem completion task.

Pragmatics for Latin

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Devine ◽  
Laurence D. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Informational Content ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Association With Focus ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Order Language ◽  
Free Word

Latin is often described as a free word order language, but in general each word order encodes a particular information structure: in that sense, each word order has a different meaning. This book provides a descriptive analysis of Latin information structure based on detailed philological evidence and elaborates a syntax-pragmatics interface that formalizes the informational content of the various different word orders. The book covers a wide ranges of issues including broad scope focus, narrow scope focus, double focus, topicalization, tails, focus alternates, association with focus, scrambling, informational structure inside the noun phrase and hyperbaton (discontinuous constituency). Using a slightly adjusted version of the structured meanings theory, the book shows how the pragmatic meanings matching the different word orders arise naturally and spontaneously out of the compositional process as an integral part of a single semantic derivation covering denotational and informational meaning at one and the same time.

Bare nominals, information structure and word order

Lingua ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 120 (6) ◽  
pp. 1476-1501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murad Salem
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Bare Nominals

Word Order in Old and Middle English

Diachronica ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Extended Version ◽  
Major Parameter ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mixed Systems

In the history of English one finds a mixture of V2 and non-V2 word order in declaratives for several hundred years, with frequencies suggesting a relatively gradual development in the direction of non-V2. Within an extended version of a cue-based approach to acquisition and change, this paper argues that there are many possible V2 grammars, differing from each other with respect to clause types, information structure, and the behavior of specific lexical elements. This variation may be formulated in terms of micro-cues. Child language data from present-day mixed systems show that such grammars are acquired early. The apparent optionality of V2 in the history of English may thus be considered to represent several different V2 grammars in succession, and it is not necessary to refer to competition between two major parameter settings. Diachronic language development can thus be argued to occur in small steps, reflecting the loss of micro-cues, and giving the impression that change is gradual.

Qualitatively Different Effects of Undetected and Unidentified Auditory Primes

1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Groeger
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
Semantic Activation ◽  
Unconscious Processing ◽  
Priming Stimulus ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Threshold Measurement

The suggestion that semantic activation can occur without conscious identification of the priming stimulus is still controversial. Many studies supporting such a contention, especially those where primes were auditorially presented, suffer from methodological shortcomings, frequently with regard to threshold measurement. In the study reported here 24 subjects underwent a considerably more rigorous thresholding procedure than has been usual, prior to engaging in a forced-choice sentence completion task. The results show that semantic priming operates when subjects were unable to detect the presence of primes and that phonological (but not semantic) priming operates when the primes were invariably detected but never correctly identified. The relevance of these qualitatively different effects of primes, as a function of the level at which they are presented, in discussed in the light of recent accounts of unconscious processing.

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