The comprehension of broad focus: Probing alternatives to verb
phrases

C 2024

The comprehension of broad focus: Probing alternatives to verb phrases

LACINA, Radim; Patrick STURT a Nicole GOTZNER

Základní údaje

Originální název

The comprehension of broad focus: Probing alternatives to verb phrases

Autoři

LACINA, Radim ; Patrick STURT a Nicole GOTZNER

Vydání

Berlin, Information structure and information theory, od s. 23-53, Topics as the Grammar-Discourse Interface 10, 2024

Nakladatel

Language Science Press

Další údaje

Jazyk

angličtina

Typ výsledku

Kapitola resp. kapitoly v odborné knize

Stát vydavatele

Německo

Utajení

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Forma vydání

tištěná verze "print"

Odkazy

URL

Označené pro přenos do RIV

ISBN

978-3-96110-481-9

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12784266

Klíčová slova anglicky

information structure, focus, alternatives, probe recognition, broad focus

Příznaky

Mezinárodní význam, Recenzováno

Změněno: 10. 1. 2025 14:06, Radim Lacina, Ph.D.

Anotace

V originále

Recent research has shown that comprehenders represent alternative meanings to single focused words online (for a review, see Gotzner & Spalek 2019), consistent with Rooth’s (1992) formal semantic account. However, focus can also take a scope over whole phrases such as the VP read the manuscript. We examined whether in these cases, too, alternatives are represented by testing for an interference effect of the particle only, which necessarily evokes alternatives. Using the probe recognition task, we first tested unmentioned alternatives to the constituent parts of VPs, to object nouns (Experiment 1, letter for manuscript) and verbs (Experiment 2, wrote for read). In Experiment 3, we tested alternatives to the whole phrase (wrote the letter). In all experiments, alternative probes were processed slower than unrelated ones. We found varying evidence of the interference effects of only with noun, verb and whole-phrase alternatives. Overall, this study does not provide support for the generalisation of the effects of only to larger units. Since our study was the first to use the probe recognition task with phrase-sized constituents, we discuss the methodological implications of our work – we found a relatedness effect for whole phrases and this shows that the probe recognition task can be used to test the representation of larger constituents.

Přiložené soubory

465-LemkeEtAl-2024-2.pdf

Citovat

LACINA, Radim; Patrick STURT a Nicole GOTZNER. The comprehension of broad focus: Probing alternatives to verb phrases. In Robin Lemke, Lisa Schäfer, Ingo Reich. Information structure and information theory. Berlin: Language Science Press, 2024, s. 23-53. Topics as the Grammar-Discourse Interface 10. ISBN 978-3-96110-481-9. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12784266.

@inbook{2466591,
   author = {Lacina, Radim and Sturt, Patrick and Gotzner, Nicole},
   address = {Berlin},
   booktitle = {Information structure and information theory},
   doi = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12784266},
   editor = {Robin Lemke, Lisa Schäfer, Ingo Reich},
   keywords = {information structure, focus, alternatives, probe recognition, broad focus},
   howpublished = {tištěná verze "print"},
   language = {eng},
   location = {Berlin},
   isbn = {978-3-96110-481-9},
   pages = {23-53},
   publisher = {Language Science Press},
   title = {The comprehension of broad focus: Probing alternatives to verb phrases},
   url = {https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/465},
   year = {2024}
}

TY  - CHAP
ID  - 2466591
AU  - Lacina, Radim - Sturt, Patrick - Gotzner, Nicole
PY  - 2024
TI  - The comprehension of broad focus: Probing alternatives to verb phrases
VL  - Topics as the Grammar-Discourse Interface 10
PB  - Language Science Press
CY  - Berlin
SN  - 9783961104819
KW  - information structure, focus, alternatives, probe recognition, broad focus
UR  - https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/465
N2  - Recent research has shown that comprehenders represent alternative meanings to single focused words online (for a review, see Gotzner & Spalek 2019), consistent with Rooth’s (1992) formal semantic account. However, focus can also take a scope over whole phrases such as the VP read the manuscript. We examined whether in these cases, too, alternatives are represented by testing for an interference effect of the particle only, which necessarily evokes alternatives. Using the probe recognition task, we first tested unmentioned alternatives to the constituent parts of VPs, to object nouns (Experiment 1, letter for manuscript) and verbs (Experiment 2, wrote for read). In Experiment 3, we tested alternatives to the whole phrase (wrote the letter). In all experiments, alternative probes were processed slower than unrelated ones. We found varying evidence of the interference effects of only with noun, verb and whole-phrase alternatives. Overall, this study does not provide support for the generalisation of the effects of only to larger units. Since our study was the first to use the probe recognition task with phrase-sized constituents, we discuss the methodological implications of our work – we found a relatedness effect for whole phrases and this shows that the probe recognition task can be used to test the representation of larger constituents.
ER  -

LACINA, Radim; Patrick STURT a Nicole GOTZNER. The comprehension of broad focus: Probing alternatives to verb phrases. In Robin Lemke, Lisa Schäfer, Ingo Reich. \textit{Information structure and information theory}. Berlin: Language Science Press, 2024, s.~23-53. Topics as the Grammar-Discourse Interface 10. ISBN~978-3-96110-481-9. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12784266.

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