scholarly journals Using audio stimuli in acceptability judgment experiments

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yourdanis Sedarous ◽  
Savithry Namboodiripad
Keyword(s):  
Acceptability Judgment ◽  
Audio Stimuli

scholarly journals Some practical considerations for using audio stimuli in acceptability judgment experiments

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yourdanis Sedarous ◽  
Savithry Namboodiripad
Keyword(s):  
Learning Curve ◽  
Experimental Syntax ◽  
Initial Learning ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Acceptability Judgment ◽  
Audio Stimuli

In this paper, we argue that moving away from written stimuli in acceptability judgment experiments is a necessary step to address the systematic exclusion of particular empirical phenomena, languages/varieties, and speakers in (psycho)linguistics (e.g., Anand, Chung, & Wagers 2011). We provide user-friendly guidelines for conducting acceptability experiments which use audio stimuli in three platforms: Praat, Qualtrics, and PennController for Ibex (Zehr & Schwarz 2018). Finally, we qualitatively compare the results of two experiments investigating English constituent order using audio and written stimuli. We hope this paper will not only increase the types of languages, speakers, and phenomena which are included in experimental syntax, but help researchers who are interested in conducting experiments overcome the initial learning curve.

scholarly journals Intonational effects on English scopally-ambiguous sentences

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-36
Author(s):  
Mien-Jen Wu ◽  
Tania Ionin
Keyword(s):  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Universal Quantifier ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

This paper examines the effect of intonation contour on two types of scopally ambiguous constructions in English: configurations with a universal quantifier in subject position and sentential negation (e.g., Every horse didn’t jump) and configurations with quantifiers in both subject and object positions (e.g., A girl saw every boy). There is much prior literature on the relationship between the fall-rise intonation and availability of inverse scope with quantifier-negation configurations. The present study has two objectives: (1) to examine whether the role of intonation in facilitating inverse scope is restricted to this configuration, or whether it extends to double-quantifier configurations as well; and (2) to examine whether fall-rise intonation fully disambiguates the sentence, or only facilitates inverse scope. These questions were investigated experimentally, via an auditory acceptability judgment task, in which native English speakers rated the acceptability of auditorily presented sentences in contexts matching surface-scope vs. inverse-scope readings. The results provide evidence that fall-rise intonation facilitates the inverse-scope readings of English quantifier-negation configurations (supporting findings from prior literature), but not those of double-quantifier configurations.

Limits on semantic prediction in the processing of extraction from adjunct clauses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Alfonso Chacón
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Maze Task ◽  
Serial Search ◽  
Conceptual Semantic ◽  
Syntactic Islands ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

Processing filler-gap dependencies (‘extraction’) depends on complex top-down predictions. This is observed in comprehenders’ ability to avoid resolving filler-gap dependencies in syntactic island contexts, and in the immediate sensitivity to the plausibility of the resulting interpretation. How complex can these predictions be? In this paper, we examine the processing of extraction from adjunct clauses. Adjunct clauses are argued to be syntactic islands, however, extraction is permitted if the adjunct clause and main clause satisfy specific compositional and conceptual semantic criteria. In an acceptability judgment task, we found that this generalization is robust. Additionally, our results show that this is a property specific to adjunct clauses by comparing adjunct clauses to conjunct VPs, which are similarly argued to permit extraction depending on semantic factors. However, in an A-Maze task, we found no evidence that this knowledge is deployed in real-time sentence processing. Instead, we found that comprehenders attempted to resolve a filler-gap dependency in an adjunct clause regardless of its island status. We propose that this is because deploying this linguistic constraint depends on a second-order serial search over event schemata, which is likely costly and time-consuming. Thus, comprehenders opt for a riskier strategy and attempt resolution into adjunct clauses categorically.

scholarly journals L2 transfer of L1 island-insensitivity: The case of Norwegian

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832095670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave Kush ◽  
Anne Dahl
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Functional Structure ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
Embedded Questions ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

Norwegian allows filler-gap dependencies into embedded questions, which are islands for filler-gap dependency formation in English. We ask whether there is evidence that Norwegian learners of English transfer the functional structure that permits island violations from their first language (L1) to their second language (L2). In two acceptability judgment studies, we find that Norwegians are more likely to accept ‘island-violating’ filler-gap dependencies in L2 English if the corresponding filler-gap dependency is acceptable in Norwegian: Norwegian learners variably accept English sentences with dependencies into embedded questions, but not into subject phrases. These results are consistent with models that permit transfer of abstract functional structure. Norwegians are still less likely to accept filler-gap dependencies into English embedded questions than Norwegian embedded questions. We interpret the latter finding as evidence that, despite transfer, Norwegian speakers may partially restructure their L2 English analysis. We discuss how indirect positive evidence may play a role in helping learners restructure.

The syntax of variable behavior verbs: Experimental evidence from the accusative–oblique alternations in Japanese

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-314
Author(s):  
SHIN FUKUDA
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
Selectional Restrictions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
Core Meaning ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

Japanese has two types of two-place motion verbs whose ‘objects’ can be marked as either accusative or oblique (accusative–oblique alternations). The accusative–goal verbs mark their objects with accusative case -o or the goal marker -ni, and the accusative–source verbs mark their objects with accusative -o or the source marker -kara. Previous studies describe systematic differences in the interpretation of the arguments of these verbs and the events they denote between the two structures. This study argues that these alternating verbs are variable behavior verbs that are linked to two distinct syntactic structures. The core evidence for this claim comes from the results of two acceptability judgment experiments with Japanese native speakers that examined: (i) selectional restrictions on the subjects of the alternating verbs and (ii) the ability of their subjects to license ‘floating’ numeral quantifiers. The results of the experiments demonstrate that the accusative–source verbs alternate between the transitive and unaccusative structures, whereas the accusative–goal verbs consistently behave like transitive verbs but assign two different structural cases to their objects. Thus, the study shows that there are multiple ways in which two-place motion verbs are mapped onto distinctive syntactic structures, whereby the core meaning of the verbs and their syntactic structures together determine their interpretation.

The time-course of morphological constraints

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Cunnings ◽  
Harald Clahsen
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
General Constraint ◽  
Movement Data ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Eye Movements During Reading ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

The avoidance of regular but not irregular plurals inside compounds (e.g., *rats eater vs. mice eater) has been one of the most widely studied morphological phenomena in the psycholinguistics literature. To examine whether the constraints that are responsible for this contrast have any general significance beyond compounding, we investigated derived word forms containing regular and irregular plurals in two experiments. Experiment 1 was an offline acceptability judgment task, and Experiment 2 measured eye movements during reading derived words containing regular and irregular plurals and uninflected base nouns. The results from both experiments show that the constraint against regular plurals inside compounds generalizes to derived words. We argue that this constraint cannot be reduced to phonological properties, but is instead morphological in nature. The eye-movement data provide detailed information on the time-course of processing derived word forms indicating that early stages of processing are affected by a general constraint that disallows inflected words from feeding derivational processes, and that the more specific constraint against regular plurals comes in at a subsequent later stage of processing. We argue that these results are consistent with stage-based models of language processing.

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