scholarly journals I'm done my homework: Complement Coercion and Aspectual Adjectives in Canadian English

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Event Description ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Aspectual Verbs ◽  
Type Shifting

Self-paced reading and eye-tracking studies have generally found that combining aspectual verbs (like ‘begin’ and ‘finish’) with entity nouns (like ‘the book’ or ‘the coffee’) is associated with increased reading times on and around the noun (McElree et al. 2001; Traxler et al. 2002; Pickering et al. 2005). This processing cost is widely interpreted as evidence of complement coercion—aspectual verbs semantically select for an event (like ‘dancing’ or ‘the dance’) and can take entity objects only if they are coerced into an event through a computationally costly process of type-shifting (Pustejovsky 1995; Jackendoff 1997). This paper presents an eye-tracking study of the Canadian English ‘be done NP’ construction, e.g., ‘I am done/finished my homework’ (not to be confused with the dialect-neutral ‘I am done/finished WITH my homework’) to mean ‘I have finished my homework’. Results suggest a processing penalty for entity-denoting nouns like ‘the script’ (compared to event description nouns like ‘the audition’) in this construction, which supports Fruehwald & Myler’s (2015) proposal that ‘done’ and ‘finished’ in this construction are aspectual adjectives that behave like aspectual verbs in requiring complement coercion and type-shifting for entity-denoting nouns.

scholarly journals Complement Coercion

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Argyro Katsika ◽  
David Braze ◽  
Ashwini Deo ◽  
Maria Mercedes Piñango
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Semantic Classes ◽  
Semantic Difference ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Aspectual Verbs ◽  
Psychological Verbs ◽  
Type Shifting

Although Complement Coercion has been systematically associated with computational cost, there remains a serious confound in the experimental evidence built up in previous studies. The confound arises from the fact that lexico-semantic differences within the set of verbs assumed to involve coercion have not been taken into consideration. From among the set of verbs that have been reported to exhibit complement coercion effects we identified two clear semantic classes — aspectual verbs and psychological verbs. We hypothesize that the semantic difference between the two should result in differing processing profiles. Aspectual predicates (begin) trigger coercion and processing cost while psychological predicates (enjoy) do not. Evidence from an eye-tracking experiment supports our hypothesis. Coercion costs are restricted to aspectual predicates while no such effects are found with psychological predicates. These findings have implications for how these two kinds of predicates might be lexically encoded as well as for whether the observed interpolation of eventive meaning can be attributed to type-shifting (e.g., McElree, Traxler, Pickering, Seely, & Jackendoff, 2001) or to pragmatic-inferential processes (e.g., De Almeida, 2004).

scholarly journals Composition of multiple dimension representations in context during real-time comprehension

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yao-Ying Lai ◽  
David Braze ◽  
Maria Mercedes Piñango
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Multiple Dimension ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Additional Processing ◽  
Movement Study ◽  
Aspectual Verbs

We investigate the role of context in the comprehension of competing semantic representations of sentences with aspectual verbs (AspVs). On the Structured Individual Hypothesis, AspVs select for structured individuals as their complement, construed as a directed axis along various dimensions. During comprehension, the verb’s lexical functions are exhaustively retrieved and the AspV+complement composition yields multiple mutually exclusive dimension representations, which are later constrained by context. Results from this eye-movement study show that AspV sentences engender additional processing cost independent of context. That is, while processing multiple dimension representations is costly, the exhaustive lexical retrieval and dimension composition are initially encapsulated from context.

When actions and looks don’t line up

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 623-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Contemori ◽  
Lucia Pozzan ◽  
Phillip Galinsky ◽  
Paola E. Dussias
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Presence And Absence

Abstract In two eye tracking experiments, we investigate how adult child-L2 speakers of English resolve prepositional phrase (PP) attachment ambiguity in their dominant language (English), and whether they use prosodic information to aid in the process of garden-path recovery. The findings showed an increased processing cost associated with the revision of temporary ambiguous sentences for the child-L2 adults relative to the native English speakers. When prosody was informative, the child-L2 adults were able to use prosodic information to guide the interpretation of their later acquired, dominant language. However, they performed revision significantly less successfully than the native speakers. Although processing was similar for the native English speakers and the adult child-L2 speakers of English, when it comes to sensitivity to prosodic information and referential context, the two groups differed with regards to reanalysis both in the presence and absence of salient prosodic and referential information.

At least ignorance inferences come at a processing cost: Support from eye movements

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stavroula Alexandropoulou ◽  
Jakub Dotlačil ◽  
Rick Nouwen
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Scalar Implicatures ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Covert Movement ◽  
Reading Study

We present results of an eye-tracking reading study that directly probes ignorance effects of the superlative numeral modifier at least in embedding and unembedding environments. We find that interpreting a numeral (phrase) modified by at least in a context with an ignorant speaker is costlier than in a context with a knowledgeable speaker, regardless of whether at least is in an embedding environment or not. In line with online studies testing scalar implicatures using a similar paradigm, this finding is taken to suggest that the observed processing cost is due to the derivation of ignorance interpretations via a pragmatic mechanism. Our results, given the paradigm we employ, further enable us to adjudicate not only between semantic and pragmatic accounts of ignorance, but also among various pragmatic proposals, favouring neo-Gricean accounts that derive ignorance as a quantity implicature (Büring 2008; Cummins & Katsos 2010; Schwarz 2013; Kennedy 2015). We find no evidence indicating that ignorance with at least in interaction with a universal modal involves an extra operation, like covert movement.

scholarly journals Didn't hear that coming: Effects of withholding phonetic cues to code-switching

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1020-1031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Shen ◽  
Susanne Gahl ◽  
Keith Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Switch Cost ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Auditory Comprehension ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Average Proportion ◽  
Pitch Contours ◽  
Phonetic Cues

AbstractCode-switching has been found to incur a processing cost in auditory comprehension. However, listeners may have access to anticipatory phonetic cues to code-switches (Piccinini & Garellek, 2014; Fricke et al., 2016), thus mitigating switch cost. We investigated effects of withholding anticipatory phonetic cues on code-switched word recognition by splicing English-to-Mandarin code-switches into unilingual English sentences. In a concept monitoring experiment, Mandarin–English bilinguals took longer to recognize code-switches, suggesting a switch cost. In an eye tracking experiment, the average proportion of all participants' looks to pictures corresponding to sentence-medial code-switches decreased when cues were withheld. Acoustic analysis of stimuli revealed tone-specific pitch contours before English-to-Mandarin code-switches, consistent with previous work on tonal coarticulation. We conclude that withholding anticipatory phonetic cues can negatively affect code-switched recognition: therefore, bilingual listeners use phonetic cues in processing code-switches under normal conditions. We discuss the implications of tonal coarticulation for mechanisms underlying phonetic cues to code-switching.

scholarly journals Processing of Complement Coercion With Aspectual Verbs in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence From a Self-Paced Reading Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenting Xue ◽  
Meichun Liu ◽  
Stephen Politzer-Ahles
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Research Goal ◽  
Aspectual Verbs ◽  
Reading Study ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Processing Difficulty ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

This study examines whether Chinese complement coercion sentences with aspectual verbs will elicit processing difficulty during real-time comprehension. Complement coercion is a linguistic phenomenon in which certain verbs (e.g., start, enjoy), requiring an event-denoting complement, are combined with an entity-denoting complement (e.g., book), as in The author started a book. Previous studies have reported that the entity-denoting complement elicited processing difficulty following verbs that require event argument compared with verbs that do not (e.g., The author wrote a book). While the processing of complement coercion has been extensively studied in Indo-European languages such as English and German, it is relatively under-researched in Sino-Tibetan languages such as Mandarin Chinese. Given the fact that there are many linguistic elements behaving distinctly in the different language families, for instance, verbs with respect to their semantic properties and syntactic representations of the complement, it is meaningful to investigate whether or not the existing linguistic differences have any effect on the processing of complement coercion in Mandarin. With this research goal, we recorded self-paced reading time of 61 native Mandarin speakers to investigate the processing of the entity-denoting complement in sentences with three different verb types (aspectual verbs which require an event-denoting complement, preferred verbs which denote a preferred interpretation of the aspectual expressions, and non-preferred verbs which denote a non-preferred but plausible interpretation of the aspectual expressions), as exemplified in 顾客开始/填写/查看这份问卷 gù-kè kāi-shǐ/tián-xiě/chá-kàn zhè-fèn wèn-juàn “The customer started/filled in/checked the questionnaire.” It was found that the entity noun complement (e.g., 这份问卷 zhè-fèn wèn-juàn “the questionnaire”) elicited significantly longer reading times in coercion sentences than non-coercion counterparts. The results are compatible with the previous findings in English that complement coercion sentences impose processing cost during real-time comprehension. The study contributes empirical evidence to coercion studies cross-linguistically.

Short Article: They're Digging up the Road Again: The Processing Cost of Institutional They

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Sanford ◽  
Ruth Filik ◽  
Catherine Emmott ◽  
Lorna Morrow
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Short Article ◽  
The Road ◽  
Processing Cost

It is commonplace to use the pronoun they to refer to agents in certain situations without ever providing a referent, as in On the train, they served really bad coffee. Such an example we call “Institutional They”, because such defaults typically represent the actions of some agent tied stereotypically to a situation. These cases represent an important subset of unheralded pronouns (Gerrig, 1986), pronouns without any explicit antecedent. While in many situations, the occurrence of referential pronouns without explicit antecedents entails a processing cost, an eye-tracking experiment revealed no reliable detectable costs associated with Institutional They. However, there were for singular pronouns without antecedents in the same situations. We argue that Institutional They cases result from properties of plural pronouns ( they and them). These will accept underspecified type-referents, while singular pronouns require specified token-referents. Failure to identify token-referents results in disruption of processing in the case of singulars, but not in the case of the plurals.

Processing cost and its consequences

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O'Grady
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Proximity Effects ◽  
Processing Cost

AbstractI focus on two challenges that processing-based theories of language must confront: the need to explain why language has the particular properties that it does, and the need to explain why processing pressures are manifested in the particular way that they are. I discuss these matters with reference to two illustrative phenomena: proximity effects in word order and a constraint on contraction.

An Eye-Tracking Study on Audiovisual Speech Perception Strategies Adopted by Normal-Hearing and Deaf Adults Under Different Language Familiarities

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2245-2254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianrong Wang ◽  
Yumeng Zhu ◽  
Yu Chen ◽  
Abdilbar Mamat ◽  
Mei Yu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Audiovisual Speech ◽  
Audiovisual Speech Perception ◽  
Allocation Pattern ◽  
Deaf Adults ◽  
Bilingual Speaker ◽  
Primary Hypothesis ◽  
Standard Chinese

Purpose The primary purpose of this study was to explore the audiovisual speech perception strategies.80.23.47 adopted by normal-hearing and deaf people in processing familiar and unfamiliar languages. Our primary hypothesis was that they would adopt different perception strategies due to different sensory experiences at an early age, limitations of the physical device, and the developmental gap of language, and others. Method Thirty normal-hearing adults and 33 prelingually deaf adults participated in the study. They were asked to perform judgment and listening tasks while watching videos of a Uygur–Mandarin bilingual speaker in a familiar language (Standard Chinese) or an unfamiliar language (Modern Uygur) while their eye movements were recorded by eye-tracking technology. Results Task had a slight influence on the distribution of selective attention, whereas subject and language had significant influences. To be specific, the normal-hearing and the d10eaf participants mainly gazed at the speaker's eyes and mouth, respectively, in the experiment; moreover, while the normal-hearing participants had to stare longer at the speaker's mouth when they confronted with the unfamiliar language Modern Uygur, the deaf participant did not change their attention allocation pattern when perceiving the two languages. Conclusions Normal-hearing and deaf adults adopt different audiovisual speech perception strategies: Normal-hearing adults mainly look at the eyes, and deaf adults mainly look at the mouth. Additionally, language and task can also modulate the speech perception strategy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document