Puzzling response particles: An experimental study on the German answering system

Claus, Berry; Meijer, A. Marlijn; Repp, Sophie; Krifka, Manfred

doi:10.3765/sp.10.19

Cited by 18 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Finally, we gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).1 For reasons of space, we do not discuss the ellipsis approaches here. These are compared with the feature model in some detail in Roelofsen and Farkas (2015), and evaluated against the German data in Claus et al (2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

Polarity particles revisited

Farkas¹,

Roelofsen

2019

S&P

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and the participants in a UCSC seminar on sentence types for very useful discussion, and to Hitomi Hirayama and Wataru Uegaki for Japanese judgments. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).1 For reasons of space, we do not discuss the ellipsis approaches here. These are compared with the feature model in some detail in Roelofsen and Farkas (2015), and evaluated against the German data in Claus et al. (2017).

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confidence: 99%

Polarity particles revisited

Farkas¹,

Roelofsen

2019

S&P

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“…One reason for this small number of clear NP2 speakers could be that some speakers also accept sentences that they hear others using (see Claus et al. submitted: 26 for a similar reasoning).…”

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confidence: 99%

A remark on Béjar & Kahnemuyipour 2017: Specificational subjects do have phi-features

Hartmann

Heycock

2018

J. Ling.

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In a number of languages, agreement in specificational copular sentences can or must be with the second of the two nominals, even when it is the first that occupies the canonical subject position. Béjar & Kahnemuyipour (2017) show that Persian and Eastern Armenian are two such languages. They then argue that ‘NP2 agreement’ occurs because the nominal in subject position (NP1) is not accessible to an external probe. It follows that actual agreement with NP1 should never be possible: the alternative to NP2 agreement should be ‘default’ agreement. We show that this prediction is false. In addition to showing that English has NP1, not default, agreement, we present new data from Icelandic, a language with rich agreement morphology, including cases that involve ‘plurale tantum’ nominals as NP1. These allow us to control for any confound from the fact that typically in a specificational sentence with two nominals differing in number, it is NP2 that is plural. We show that even in this case, the alternative to agreement with NP2 is agreement with NP1, not a default. Hence, we conclude that whatever the correct analysis of specificational sentences turns out to be, it must not predict obligatory failure of NP1 agreement.

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“…Following Krifka (2013, 2015, in press) and Claus et al (2016) we assume that: (i) speech acts create spaces of commitments, and by means of them interlocutors may introduce changes of commitments, in a dynamic and dialogical way; (ii) a reject speech act is one by which a speaker opposes to the commitment suggested by the interlocutor, and forces a change of commitment with respect to the common ground; and (iii) a reject speech act applies to an assert speech act, in which the polarity of the sentence is expressed. Furthermore, following González-Fuente et al (2015), we assume that (iv) prosodic and gesture cues may signal specific relationships between the speaker, the proposition uttered and the common ground, and may convey different epistemic commitments of discourse participants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pope (1976) already warns the reader that no language will have a completely straightforward system, and in recent independent studies (González-Fuente et al, 2015; Roelofsen and Farkas, 2015; Claus et al, 2016; Holmberg, 2016) it has been argued that this typology corresponds to idealized models and overall they call into question the parametric distinction between truth-based vs. polarity-based systems. Roelofsen and Farkas (2015) argue that English and other languages such as Romanian, Hungarian, French and German are not completely polarity-based.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…English “ yes may be used to signal that the response is positive, or that it agrees with the antecedent possibility in terms of content and polarity, while no may be used to signal that the response is negative, or that it reverses the antecedent possibility in terms of content and polarity (Roelofsen and Farkas, 2015:383). Languages such as Hungarian, Romanian and German have been described as having ternary polarity particle systems (Farkas, 2009, 2010, 2011; Farkas and Bruce, 2011; Krifka, 2013; Claus et al, 2016). González-Fuente et al (2015) show that speakers of Catalan, a language that has been described as being polarity-based, can make use of lexico-syntactic strategies characteristic of truth-based systems at the time of expressing reject.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is Mandarin Chinese a Truth-Based Language? Rejecting Responses to Negative Assertions and Questions

González-Fuente

Prieto

et al. 2016

Front. Psychol.

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This paper addresses the central question of whether Mandarin Chinese (MC) is a canonical truth-based language, a language that is expected to express the speaker's disagreement to a negative proposition by means of a negative particle followed by a positive sentence. Eight native speakers of MC participated in an oral Discourse Completion Task that elicited rejecting responses to negative assertions/questions and broad focus statements (control condition). Results show that MC speakers convey reject by relying on a combination of lexico-syntactic strategies (e.g., negative particles such as bù, méi(yǒu), and positive sentences) together with prosodic (e.g., mean pitch) and gestural strategies (mainly, the use of head nods). Importantly, the use of a negative particle, which was the expected outcome in truth-based languages, only appeared in 52% of the rejecting answers. This system puts into question the macroparametric division between truth-based and polarity-based languages and calls for a more general view of the instantiation of a reject speech act that integrates lexical and syntactic strategies with prosodic and gestural strategies.

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Puzzling response particles: An experimental study on the German answering system

Cited by 18 publications

References 30 publications

Polarity particles revisited

Polarity particles revisited

A remark on Béjar & Kahnemuyipour 2017: Specificational subjects do have phi-features

Is Mandarin Chinese a Truth-Based Language? Rejecting Responses to Negative Assertions and Questions

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