Experimental investigations of weak definite and weak indefinite noun phrases

Abstract

Definite noun phrases typically refer to entities that are uniquely identifiable in the speaker and addressee’s common ground. Some definite noun phrases (e.g. the hospital in Mary had to go the hospital and John did too) seem to violate this uniqueness constraint. We report six experiments that were motivated by the hypothesis that these “weak definite” interpretations arise in “incorporated” constructions. Experiments 1-3 compared nouns that seem to allow for a weak definite interpretation (e.g. hospital, bank, bus, radio) with those that do not (e.g. farm, concert, car, book). Experiments 1 and 2 used an instruction-following task and picture-judgment task, respectively, to demonstrate that a weak definite need not uniquely refer. In Experiment 3 participants imagined scenarios described by sentences such as The Federal Express driver had to go to the hospital/farm. The imagined scenarios following weak definite noun phrases were more likely to include conventional activities associated with the object, whereas following regular nouns, participants were more likely to imagine scenarios that included typical activities associated with the subject; similar effects were observed with weak indefinites. Experiment 4 found that object-related activities were reduced when the same subject and object were used with a verb that does not license weak definite interpretations. In Experiment 5, a science fiction story introduced an artificial lexicon for novel concepts. Novel nouns that shared conceptual properties with English weak definite nouns were more likely to allow weak reference in a judgment task. Experiment 6 demonstrated that familiarity for definite articles and anti- familiarity for indefinite articles applies to the activity associated with the noun, consistent with predictions made by the incorporation analysis.

Weak definites as a form of definiteness: experimental investigations

“…We now present a series of experiments, most of which are described in much more detail in Klein (2011) and in Klein et al (2013). For our purposes we will only present the "bare bones" of the design, statistical analysis, and materials.…”

Lo concreto y lo abstracto en nominalizaciones deadjetivales

“…Al analizar una única posición sintáctica, podemos estudiar este comportamiento sin cuestionarnos si la interpretación varía según la posición sintáctica que el SD ocupa. Un claro ejemplo de esto sería un SD que al estar en la posición de sujeto fuese fuertemente referencial (con una entidad concreta con la cual claramente se relaciona), como en 'El hospital es ese edificio de ahí' en donde se asume que hay un objeto con el que 'el hospital' se corresponde, pero que tuviese una lectura incorporada cuando está en la posición interna (ver Klein, Gegg-Harrison, Carlson & Tanenhaus, 2013), como en 'Ana fue al hospital' en donde se asume que Ana, además de ir al hospital, fue al médico, a hacerse exámenes, etc.…”

Definidos Fracos, Uma Forma De Definitude: Investigações Experimentais

“…Apresentamos agora uma série de experimentos, a maioria dos quais foram descritos com mais detalhes em Klein (2011) e em Klein et alii (2013). Para os nossos propósitos, iremos apresentar somente o "esqueleto" do design, a análise estatística e os materiais.…”