ASL Production

Previous research has pointed at naturalness and communicative efficiency as possible constraints on language structure. Here, we investigated adjective position in American Sign Language (ASL), a language with relatively flexible word order, to test the incremental efficiency hypothesis, according to which both speakers and signers try to produce efficient referential expressions that are sensitive to the word order of their languages. The results of three experiments using a standard referential communication task confirmed that deaf ASL signers tend to produce absolute adjectives, such as color or material, in prenominal position, while scalar adjectives tend to be produced in prenominal position when expressed as lexical signs, but in postnominal position when expressed as classifiers. Age of ASL exposure also had an effect on referential choice, with early-exposed signers producing more classifiers than late-exposed signers. Overall, our results suggest that linguistic, pragmatic and developmental factors affect referential choice in ASL, supporting the hypothesis that communicative efficiency is an important factor in shaping language structure.

EXPRESS: Processing symbolic magnitude information conveyed by number words and by scalar adjectives

Humans not only process and compare magnitude information such as size, duration, and number perceptually, but they also communicate about these properties using language. In this respect, a relevant class of lexical items are so-called scalar adjectives like ‘big’, ‘long’, ‘loud’, etc. which refer to magnitude information. It has been proposed that humans use an amodal and abstract representation format shared by different dimensions, called the generalized magnitude system (GMS). In this paper, we test the hypothesis that scalar adjectives are symbolic references to GMS representations, and, therefore, GMS gets involved in processing their meaning. Previously, a parallel hypothesis on the relation between number symbols and GMS representations has been tested with the size congruity paradigm. The results of these experiments showed interference between the processing of number symbols and the processing of physical (font-) size. In the first three experiments of the present study (total N=150), we used the size congruity paradigm and the same/different task to look at the potential interaction between physical size magnitude and numerical magnitude expressed by number words. In the subsequent three experiments (total N=149), we looked at a parallel potential interaction between physical size magnitude and scalar adjective meaning.

Online pragmatic interpretations of scalar adjectives are affected by perceived speaker reliability

Linguistic communication requires understanding of words in relation to their context. Among various aspects of context, one that has received relatively little attention until recently is the speakers themselves. We asked whether comprehenders’ online language comprehension is affected by the perceived reliability with which a speaker formulates pragmatically well-formed utterances. In two eye-tracking experiments, we conceptually replicated and extended a seminal work by Grodner and Sedivy (2011). A between-participant manipulation was used to control reliability with which a speaker follows implicit pragmatic conventions (e.g., using a scalar adjective in accordance with contextual contrast). Experiment 1 replicated Grodner and Sedivy’s finding that contrastive inference in response to scalar adjectives was suspended when both the spoken input and the instructions provided evidence of the speaker’s (un)reliability: For speech from the reliable speaker, comprehenders exhibited the early fixations attributable to a contextually-situated, contrastive interpretation of a scalar adjective. In contrast, for speech from the unreliable speaker, comprehenders did not exhibit such early fixations. Experiment 2 provided novel evidence of the reliability effect in the absence of explicit instructions. In both experiments, the effects emerged in the earliest expected time window given the stimuli sentence structure. The results suggest that real-time interpretations of spoken language are optimized in the context of a speaker identity, characteristics of which are extrapolated across utterances.

Processing symbolic magnitude information conveyed by number words and by scalar adjectives

Humans not only process and compare magnitude information such as size, duration, and number perceptually, but they also communicate about these properties using language. In this respect, a relevant class of lexical items are so-called scalar adjectives like ‘big’, ‘long’, ‘loud’, etc. which refer to magnitude information. It has been proposed that humans use an amodal and abstract representation format shared by different dimensions, called the generalized magnitude system (GMS). In this paper, we test the hypothesis that scalar adjectives are symbolic references to GMS representations, and, therefore, GMS gets involved in processing their meaning. Previously, a parallel hypothesis on the relation between number symbols and GMS representations has been tested with the size congruity paradigm. The results of these experiments showed interference between the processing of number symbols and the processing of physical (font-) size. In the first three experiments of the present study (total N=150), we used the size congruity paradigm and the same/different task to look at the potential interaction between physical size magnitude and numerical magnitude expressed by number words. In the subsequent three experiments (total N=149), we looked at a parallel potential interaction between physical size magnitude and scalar adjective meaning. In the size congruity paradigm we observed interference between the processing of the numerical value of number words and the meaning of scalar adjectives, on the one hand, and physical (font-) size, on the other had, when participants had to judge the number words or the adjectives (while ignoring physical size). No interference was obtained for the reverse situation, i.e. when participants judged the physical font size (while ignoring numerical value or meaning). The results of the same/different task for both number words and scalar adjectives strongly suggested that the interference that was observed in the size congruity paradigm was likely due to a response conflict at the decision stage of processing rather than due to the recruitment of GMS representations. Taken together, it can be concluded that the size congruity paradigm does not provide evidence in support the hypothesis that GMS representations are used in the processing of number words or scalar adjectives. Nonetheless, the hypothesis we put forward about scalar adjectives is still is a promising potential line of research. We make a number of suggestions for how this hypothesis can be explored in future studies.

Information integration in modulation of pragmatic inferences during online language comprehension

Upon hearing a scalar adjective in a definite referring expression such as “the big…,” listeners typically make anticipatory eye movements to an item in a contrast set, such as a big glass in the context of a smaller glass. Recent studies have suggested that this rapid, contrastive interpretation of scalar adjectives is malleable and calibrated to the speaker’s pragmatic competence. In a series of eye tracking experiments, we explore the nature of the evidence necessary for the modulation of pragmatic inferences in language comprehension, focusing on the complementary roles of top-down information–knowledge about the particular speaker’s pragmatic competence—and bottom-up cues—distributional information about the use of scalar adjectives in the environment. We find that bottom-up evidence alone (e.g., the speaker says “the big dog” in a context with one dog), in large quantities, can be sufficient to trigger modulation of the listener’s contrastive inferences, with or without top-down cues to support this adaptation. Further, these findings suggest that listeners track and flexibly combine multiple sources of information in service of efficient pragmatic communication.

Measurement theory and the typology of scales

Most previous work on graded modality has relied on qualitative orderings, rather than degree semantics. This chapter introduces Representational Theory of Measurement (RTM), a framework which makes it possible to translate between qualitative and degree-based scales. I describe a way of using RTM to extend the compositional degree semantics introduced in chapter 1 to qualitative scales. English data are used to motivate the application of the RTM discussion between ordinal, interval, and ratio scales to scalar adjectives, with special attention to the kinds of statements that are semantically interpretable relative to different scale types. I also propose and motivate empirically a distinction between ‘additive’ and ‘intermediate’ scales, which interact differently with the algebraic join operation (realizing sum formation or disjunction, depending on the domain). This distinction is reflected in inferential properties of non-modal adjectives in English, and is also important for the analysis of graded modality in later chapters.