Training and Timing Local Scalar Enrichments under Global Pragmatic Pressures

Chemla, Emmanuel; Cummins, Chris; Singh, Rajendra

doi:10.1093/jos/ffw006

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The experiment was run remotely on a web-based platform using the Ibex Farm software (Drummond; http://spellout.net/ibexfarm). Web-based testing was used because it allowed us to expand the number of participants, and because this method has been found to yield reliable results in previous psycholinguistics studies (Chemla, Cummins, & Singh, 2016;Dillon, Clifton, & Frazier, 2014;Enochson, & Culbertson, 2014;Gibson, Piantadosi, & Fedorenko, 2011;Sprouse, 2011;Wagers & Phillips, 2014). For German native speakers, each session lasted approximately 30 min.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agreement attraction in native and nonnative speakers of German

Lago¹,

Felser²

2018

Applied Psycholinguistics

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Second language speakers often struggle to apply grammatical constraints such as subject–verb agreement. One hypothesis for this difficulty is that it results from problems suppressing syntactically unlicensed constituents in working memory. We investigated which properties of these constituents make them more likely to elicit errors: their grammatical distance to the subject head or their linear distance to the verb. We used double modifier constructions (e.g., the smell of the stables of the farmers), where the errors of native speakers are modulated by the linguistic relationships between the nouns in the subject phrase: second plural nouns, which are syntactically and semantically closer to the subject head, elicit more errors than third plural nouns, which are linearly closer to the verb (2nd-3rd-noun asymmetry). In order to dissociate between grammatical and linear distance, we compared embedded and coordinated modifiers, which were linearly identical but differed in grammatical distance. Using an attraction paradigm, we showed that German native speakers and proficient Russian speakers of German exhibited similar attraction rates and that their errors displayed a 2nd-3rd-noun asymmetry, which was more pronounced in embedded than in coordinated constructions. We suggest that both native and second language learners prioritize linguistic structure over linear distance in their agreement computations.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agreement attraction in native and nonnative speakers of German

Lago¹,

Felser²

2018

Applied Psycholinguistics

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“… 2 Some work on factors which impact on local enrichment include Chemla et al (2017) and Sun and Breheny (2018c) . …”

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confidence: 99%

A Link Between Local Enrichment and Scalar Diversity

Sun

Breheny

2018

Front. Psychol.

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Several recent studies have shown that different scalar terms are liable to give rise to scalar inferences at different rates (Doran et al., 2009, 2012; van Tiel et al., 2016). A number of potential factors have been explored to account for such Scalar Diversity. These factors can be seen as methodological in origin, or as motivated by widely discussed analyses of scalar inferences. Such factors allow us to explain some of the variation, but they leave much of it unexplained. In this paper, we explore two new potential factors. One is methodologically motivated, related to the choice of items in previous studies. The second is motivated by theoretical approaches which go beyond the standard Gricean approach to pragmatic effects. In particular, we consider dual route theories which allow for scalar inferences to be explained either using ‘global’ pragmatic derivations, like those set out in standard Gricean theory, or using local adjustments to interpretation. We focus on one such theory, based on the Bayesian Rational Speech Act approach (RSA-LU, Bergen et al., 2016). We show that RSA-LU predicts that a scalar term’s liability to certain kinds of local enrichment will explain some Scalar Diversity. In three experiments, we show that both proposed factors are active in the scalar diversity effect. We conclude with a discussion of the grammatical approach to local effects and show that our results provide better evidence for dual route approaches to scalar effects.

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“…Scalar implicature has long been one of the most studied phenomena in experimental pragmatics—indeed, the study of scalar implicature played a seminal role in the emergence of ‘experimental pragmatics’ as a field. Much research on the computation of scalar implicatures relies on behavioural measures, including explicit judgements about the meanings of various utterances under various conditions (Bott & Noveck, 2004; Bott, Bailey, & Grodner, 2012; Chemla & Spector, 2011; Chevallier et al, 2008; De Neys & Schaeken, 2007; Degen, 2015; Dieussaert, Verkerk, Gillard, & Schaeken, 2011; Doran, Baker, McNabb, Larson, & Ward, 2009; Feeney, Scafton, Duckworth, & Handley, 2004; Geurts & Pouscoulous, 2009; Goodman & Stuhlmüller, 2013; Marty & Chemla, 2013; Marty, Chemla, & Spector, 2013; van Tiel, van Miltenburg, Zevakhina, & Geurts, 2016; among others), reaction and reading time measures (Bergen & Grodner, 2012; Bezuidenhout & Cutting, 2002; Bott & Noveck, 2004; Breheny, Katsos, & Williams, 2006; Chemla, Cummins, & Singh, 2017; Hartshorne & Snedeker, 2014; Noveck & Posada, 2003; Politzer‐Ahles & Fiorentino, 2013; Politzer‐Ahles & Husband, 2018; among others), measures of eye movements (Breheny, Ferguson, & Katsos, 2012, 2013; Degen & Tanenhaus, 2015; Grodner, Klein, Carbary, & Tanenhaus, 2010; Huang & Snedeker, 2009; among others) and mouse tracking (Tomlinson, Bailey, & Bott, 2013). Recent reviews of these literatures are available in, for example, Chemla and Singh (2014a,b) and Sauerland and Schumacher (2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What can electrophysiology tell us about the cognitive processing of scalar implicatures?

Politzer-Ahles

2020

Language and Linguist. Compass

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One of the most widely studied phenomena in neuropragmatics-the study of how the brain derives context-and speaker-based aspects of meaning-is scalar implicature. A scalar implicature is the interpretation of a proposition like Some of the students failed as meaning that a stronger proposition (Not all of the students failed) is not true. While scalar implicatures have been a significant object of study for decades, in recent years there has been an explosion of experiments investigating them using neuroscientific methods, particularly electroencephalography. Much of this research aims to identify neural substrates of comprehending scalar implicatures. Here, I review the extant findings and argue that the most of these studies have not directly observed neural correlates of scalar implicatures; rather, they have mostly observed downstream and/or domain-general processes that happen to be related to implicatures, but not uniquely so. I argue that an instrumental approach to neuroscience-one that treats brain components not as objects of research in of themselves, but as tools for learning about pragmatics-would be a valuable addition to this emerging field. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Training and Timing Local Scalar Enrichments under Global Pragmatic Pressures

Cited by 12 publications

References 51 publications

Agreement attraction in native and nonnative speakers of German

Agreement attraction in native and nonnative speakers of German

A Link Between Local Enrichment and Scalar Diversity

What can electrophysiology tell us about the cognitive processing of scalar implicatures?

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