Granularity in the Semantics of Comparison

This paper makes the novel observation that definite comparatives, such as the bigger circle, impose restrictions on the cardinality of the comparison class (CC) against which their truth conditions are evaluated. We show that the corpus frequency counts of definite comparatives sharply drop when the comparison class used for their interpretation is formed by more than two individuals. Two alternative theories of these distributional facts are considered and tested experimentally through an acceptability judgment task. According to the first theory, the 2-Individuals Theory, definite comparatives presuppose that the CC is of cardinality 2; under the second theory, the 2-Degrees Theory, the meaning of the comparative is evaluated against a granularity γ that maps the individuals in the CC to degrees in the relevant adjectival scale, and definite comparatives presuppose that the set of the degrees resulting from this mapping is of cardinality 2. Our experimental results show that definite comparative descriptions are most frequent and felicitous when evaluated against comparison classes with two individuals, but also that acceptability drops off with higher cardinalities in a gradient manner that is sensitive to granularity. Taken together, these findings argue against the 2-Individuals theory of definite comparatives and lend support to the 2-Degrees theory.

A PROPOSAL FOR RECALIBRATION OF A VOCABULARY LEVELS TEST AS DIAGNOSIS OF LATE BILINGUALS’ L2 PROFICIENCY

his study explores the recalibration and adequacy of a measure of vocabulary size – the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) – as a predictor of Brazilian Portuguese-English speakers’ ability to access grammatical representations through their non-dominant language. Such endeavor concerns a specific part of the test (composed majorly by cognates) which has been blurring the results when participants are natives in Latin-derived languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese. A new test (nVLT) was designed, with a novel version of this problematic part (level 4) present in the older test that, now, avoids the proliferation of cognates. Both versions were applied to a number of Brazilian participants and the results were correlated with another proficiency measure, taken from an acceptability judgment task designed according to the model reported in Souza et al (2015). When the low-proficiency participants took the VLT, there were a decreasing pattern in their scores from the first level of the exam all the way to level 3 (because each level is harder than the preceding). But, when they got to level 4, which is “harder” than level 3, their scores increased surprisingly, and then decreased again in level 5. When they performed the nVLT, which has a level 4 recalibrated (without latin cognates), the decreasing pattern was maintained evenly through the whole test. These results from nVLT show an internal coherence of the test due to the recalibration.

Preliminary Characterization of a Functional Jam from Red Chicory By-Product

Background: The by-products of red chicory leaves are a valuable source of bioactive compounds that can be exploited in the development of functional foods. Objective: This work aimed to combine healthy properties of red chicory by-products with other ingredients in the formulation of a functional jam, which is easy and safe to swallow, especially for people suffering from dysphagia. Methods: The physicochemical parameters, as well as the total polyphenols content (TPC), was assessed in the obtained product. Results: The TPC (549.44 mg GAE/100 g) was higher than the values reported in other jams, and it remained stable along with the colour during six weeks of storage. Within the carbohydrates, 0.4% of the prebiotic fibre inulin has been detected, suggesting that this jam formulation is a promising delivery system of phenols and fibre. From the sensorial point of view, the functional jam obtained an overall good acceptability judgment. The bitterness of the red chicory is persistent, which helps people with dysphagia swallow more easily. Conclusion: The functional jam, based on chicory by-products, could be a good source of bioactive compounds, which are helpful even in the disabled subjects’ diet.

NS and NNS processing of idioms and nonidiom formulaic sequences: What can reaction times and think-alouds tell us?

Although researchers generally agree that native speakers (NSs) process formulaic sequences (FSs) holistically to some extent, findings about nonnative speakers (NNSs) are conflicting, potentially because not all FSs are psychologically equal or because in some studies NNSs may not have fully understood the FSs. We address these issues by investigating Chinese NSs and NNSs processing of idioms and matched nonidiom FSs in phrase acceptability judgment tasks with and without think-alouds (TAs). Reaction times show that NSs processed idioms faster than nonidioms regardless of length, but NNSs processed 3-character FSs faster than 4-character FSs regardless of type. TAs show NSs’ understanding of FSs has reached ceiling, but NNSs’ understanding was incomplete, with idioms being understood more poorly than nonidioms. Although we conclude that idioms and nonidioms have different mental statuses in NSs’ lexicons, it is inconclusive how they are represented by NNSs. TAs also show that NNSs employed various strategies to compensate for limited idiom knowledge, causing comparable processing speed for idioms and nonidioms. The findings highlight the importance of distinguishing subtypes of FSs and considering NNSs’ quality of understanding in discussions of the psychological reality of FSs.

What Can L2ers Tell Us about Codeswitching? Mood Selection in Spanish

An increasing amount of research shows that bilinguals that engage in codeswitching (CS) may show different patterns of usage and sensitivity to particular linguistic structures depending on community norms. Additionally, proficiency may play a different role in sensitivity to code-switched utterances depending on speaker background, as well as the structure investigated. In this study, we aim to examine how bilinguals not exposed to CS in the community rate CS vs. unilingual sentences involving mood selection in Spanish. In an online acceptability judgment task (AJT), 20 Spanish L2ers rated sentences containing verbs in the indicative and subjunctive mood in restrictive relative clauses manipulated for the specificity of the antecedent in two separate sessions: a Spanish monolingual mode and a CS session. The L2ers did not show evidence of a CS effect and maintained a mood distinction according to the specificity of the antecedent both in unilingual and codeswitched sentences. These results are in contrast with the results previously reported for Spanish heritage speakers (HSs), where a CS effect is attested in the loss of preference for the subjunctive in nonspecific relative clauses in the CS vs. the monolingual Spanish condition. Additionally, this distinction is found at both lower and higher proficiency levels. The differences between these speakers and HSs are consistent with data from previous research on CS effects on phonology and Det–N switches. We argue that exposure to community norms is necessary for the acquisition of patterns not related exclusively to the grammaticality of switch junctures (I-language).

An experimental reassessment of complex NP islands with NP-scrambling in Japanese

There is little consensus in the Japanese syntax literature on the question of whether complex NPs with a complement clause headed by to yuu ‘that say’ are islands for NP-scrambling dependencies. To explore this question, we conducted two acceptability judgment experiments using the factorial definition of islands to test the island status of noun complements, relative clauses (which are complex NPs, but uniformly considered islands in the literature), and coordinated NP structures (which are also uniformly considered islands in the literature). Our first experiment yielded clear evidence that relative clauses and coordinated NPs are islands, and that noun complements are not. Our second experiment replicated the relative clause and coordinated NP results, but yielded an inconclusive null result for noun complements. Taken together, our results suggest either that noun complements are not islands, or that noun complements yield a small island effect that cannot be reliably detected at the typical sample sizes of 30-40 participants used here. We also investigated between- and within-participant variability in our results. We observe no evidence of increased between-participant variability for noun complements relative to other islands, and no increase of within-participant variability for noun complements relative to grammatical NP-scrambling, thus corroborating our conclusions. Our results have consequences for a number of issues that have been encoded in current syntactic theories of island effects, including the correlation between syntactic constituent complexity and island status (e.g., number of bounding nodes or phase heads), and the correlation between complementizer deletion and island status (e.g., the complement/adjunct distinction).

Locative Inversion, PP Topicalization, and Weak Crossover in English

The literature on locative inversion in English currently disputes whether locative inversion differs from PP topicalization in permitting a quantifier in the fronted PP to bind a pronoun in the subject. In order to resolve this dispute, this paper runs two experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk, one an acceptability judgment task and the other a forced-choice task. Both find that PP topicalization does not differ from locative inversion: both permit variable binding. Locative inversion also does not differ from a minimally different sentence with the overt expletive there. These findings remove an argument against the null expletive analysis of English locative inversion, and they also show that weak crossover is not uniformly triggered by A-bar movement.

The use of default forms in codeswitching

This paper examines the effects that codeswitching (CS) has on mood selection in restrictive relative clauses in the Spanish of heritage speakers (HSs). Spanish HS participants completed an online acceptability judgment task in which they rated monolingual (i.e., unilingual) and codeswitched sentences containing verbs in indicative and subjunctive mood in restrictive relative clauses manipulated for specificity of the antecedent. The results indicated an association of the subjunctive with non-specificity in monolingual sentences that was lost in the codeswitched sentences, although this effect was modulated by proficiency. These results are discussed in terms of the use of default forms in CS.

Why-questions and focus in Italian

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.

The That-Trace Effect: Evidence from Spanish–English Code-Switching

The that-trace effect is the fact that many languages (like English) ban the extraction of embedded-clause subjects but not objects over an overt complementizer like that, while many other languages (like Spanish) allow such extractions. The effect and its cross-linguistic variation have been the subject of intense research but remain largely a mystery, with no clear consensus on their underpinnings. We contribute novel evidence to these debates by using Spanish–English code-switching (the use of two languages in one sentence) to test five contemporary theoretical accounts of the that-trace effect. We conducted a formal acceptability judgment experiment, manipulating the extracted argument and code-switch site to test different combinations of linguistic features. We found that subject extraction is only permitted in Spanish–English code-switching when both the C head (que ‘that’) and the T head (i.e., the verb) are in Spanish, but not when either functional head is in English. Our results demonstrate indirect support for two of the five theories we test, failing to support the other three. Our findings also provide new evidence in favor of the view that the that-trace effect is tightly linked to the availability of post-verbal subjects. Finally, we outline how our results can narrow the range of possible theoretical accounts, demonstrating how code-switching data can contribute to core questions in linguistic theory.