Proceedings Published by the LSA (Linguistic Society of America)
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Superiority effects with wh-adjuncts in Turkish
Full text linkThis paper examines Superiority constraints in Turkish, a wh-in-situ language that permits both A- and A\u27-scrambling. Previous accounts argue that Turkish lacks Superiority constraints when multiple wh-phrases occur within the same clause; that is, both wh-phrases can freely move to the left periphery, and the lower syntactic wh-phrase can take scope over the higher one at LF. Previous accounts have only observed Superiority phenomena in Turkish when both wh-phrases originate in separate clauses and the movement is cross-clausal, aligning it with languages like English. We show that this generalization does not fully hold and make two central claims. First, Turkish exhibits Superiority effects even in monoclausal contexts, specifically when a wh-adjunct (e.g., where or how often) is in the construction. Secondly, this Superiority effects can be ameliorated by F-marking any constituent within the sentence. These findings show that Superiority is present in Turkish, contrary to previous literature, and that it is sensitive to argument/adjunct distinction as well as to F-marking
Quantifying metalinguistic awareness of sociophonetic features
Full text linkMetalinguistic awareness of sociophonetic features may vary based on social or individual factors (e.g. dialect region, production, perception), as well as properties of the dialects or features themselves (e.g. their markedness). It is necessary to quantify metalinguistic awareness in order to consider these relationships statistically. This study tests a method of quantifying metalinguistic awareness using three tasks (written dialect description, written dialect identification, auditory dialect identification) and four sociophonetic features of North American English (/\ae g/-raising, /aj/-monophthongization and, Canadian raising of /aj/ and /aw/, considered separately). It finds that it is possible to quantify metalinguistic awareness, but that other modes of folk linguistic awareness, such as detail and accuracy, contribute differentially to the tasks used in this study
Concordant subject marking in Mauritian Creole serial verb constructions
Full text linkSyea (2013) and Muysken & Veenstra (2017) identify some parameters along which subject marking varies in Mauritian Creole’s Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs). Subject marking in SVCs are shown in these works to be either single (marked once for the whole construction), or concordant (marked once for each verb). They argue there is an interaction between subject marking, subject type (referential or pronominal), and negation marking (single or concordant). This work expands on these findings, through the exploration of the SVC Composition parameter (as identified in Aikhenvald 2006). The findings show concordant subject marking for all symmetric SVCs regardless of the other factors above, but not in asymmetric SVCs
Homogeneity and identity: A solution to the problem of minimal parts
Full text linkPlural and non-count nouns have been characterized as having homogeneous reference, the combination of the second-order properties of cumulative and divisive reference. Homogeneous reference is a useful property that captures similarities in the behavior of count plural and non-countable nouns. However, formal semantic definitions of divisive reference—the property that any part of what a noun refers to can also be referred to with that noun—run into the Problem of Minimal Parts. While both a portion of water and another portion of water that it is a part of can be referred to with the noun phrase water, both have parts such as hydrogen and oxygen atoms that are not water. This paper introduces a new formulation of homogeneous reference that avoids the Problem of Minimal Parts by making reference to the sum operation, rather than parthood relations
Relating Scalar Inference and Alternative Activation: A View from the Rise-Fall-Rise Tune in American English
Full text linkThe rise-fall-rise (RFR) tune in American English has received numerous theoretical accounts to describe its meaning contribution, with a consistent theme being the relationship between RFR and "higher alternatives." However, Autosegmental-Metrical theory predicts three RFR-shaped tunes which differ in the rising pitch accent used (H*, L+H*, L*+H), raising the question of whether different RFR-shaped tunes in fact behave differently. We investigate this question under the lens of scalar inference (SI). We find that RFR-shaped tunes with different pitch accents behave similarly in offline interpretation, increasing the rate of SI calculation relative to falling tunes. In online processing using cross-modal priming with lexical decision, we find an asymmetry in the processing profile of two RFR-shaped tunes: H*L-H% leads to additional facilitation of the higher alternative, while L*+HL-H% leads to less facilitation. We describe these results in relation to differences in pitch range and discuss how they relate to ongoing debates about RFR
Non-Implicature Sources of Exclusivity in Linguistic Disjunction
Full text linkDisjunction in natural language alternates between an inclusive reading (A or B or Both) and an exclusive reading (A or B but not Both). Traditional accounts of this ambiguity focus on scalar implicature as the source of disjunction exclusivity, a process whereby Gricean reasoning over Horn scales strengthens the baseline inclusive reading to an implied exclusive reading (Grice, 1978; Horn, 1972; Gazdar, 1980). Despite nearly all theories acknowledging that other factors likely play a role in the generation of exclusivity implications, non-implicature factors have received comparatively little attention. Across four experiments we tested two such non implicature factors, prior compatibility and syntactic category, finding that both play a role in speaker interpretations of disjunctive sentences. Additionally, by drawing our stimuli in the first two experiments from the prior literature, we found evidence that previous research on disjunction, while accurately identifying the key role of scalar implicatures, may be overestimating the effect size thereof due to a failure to control for non-implicature factors.
Devoir, ou pouvoir, that is the question
Full text linkIn languages like French and English, modals express either possibility (e.g., “you can”) or necessity (e.g., “you must”). Previous acquisition research has shown that English-speaking children have particular difficulty with necessity modals: comprehension experiments show that they tend to accept must or have-to in possibility scenarios (Noveck 2001, Özturk & Papafragou 2015, a.o.); production studies show that they use them less frequently than possibility modals, and when they do, their usage is not always adult-like (Dieuleveut et al. 2022). But the cause of this “Necessity Gap” remains debated. One challenge is that past studies have focused primarily on English, where necessity modals are much rarer than possibility modals in parental speech, which could suggest that the delay is simply due to less exposure. In this study, we demonstrate through a corpus analysis of French young children’s modal use and their linguistic input, as well as experiments based on this data (following the methods of Dieuleveut et al. 2022), that the delay cannot be attributed solely to limited exposure: despite more exposure, French-speaking children experience the same difficulties with necessity modals. Furthermore, we show that these difficulties persist until children are five years old
Using the lower bound set by the universal modal to investigate the status of partial objects and count nouns
Full text linkPrior research has demonstrated that when given objects (e.g., forks) broken into pieces, children deviate from adults by counting each discrete object-piece as on par with a whole. A recent proposal ties this behavior to the vagueness and context-sensitivity inherent to count noun semantics. The present study leverages the universal modal have to in order to investigate how a linguistic context, one which sets lower bounds on numerals in its scope, regulates nominal application. Our results show that for children, who prefer the ‘exact’ reading of numerals, the partial object not only serves to meet the lower bound, but also exceeds a numerical upper bound. Adults, on the other hand, do not consider the partial object as meeting the lower bound induced by the modal. Because we cannot determine the explanation for this finding with our current design, we plan to adapt it to use the existential modal allowed to
Disagreements do not automatically raise the standard of precision
Full text linkSpeakers often choose to utter imprecise sentences that, albeit felicitous, are, strictly speaking, false (e.g., using \u27This bottle is empty’ to describe a bottle with a bit of water in it). The acceptability of an imprecise utterance hinges on the standard of precision (SoP), a discourse parameter that governs how much imprecision is tolerated in a context. Previous theoretical accounts (e.g., Lewis 1979, Klecha 2018) have argued that metalinguistic denials that target the assertability of an imprecise utterance (e.g., ‘No, this bottle is not empty!’) more or less force accommodation to a higher SoP. The present study investigates the nature of this accommodation process. In particular, we ask whether metalinguistic disagreements result in an automatic update of the SoP. In two acceptability judgment experiments, we show that imprecise utterances are not deemed unacceptable when embedded in a disagreement dialogue. Our findings instead suggest that metalinguistic denials act as a request to raise the SoP and that any potential updates ought to be signaled overtly in subsequent conversational moves
Scope, monotonicity and maximal informativity cannot be underestimated! A compositional analysis of an apparent linguistic illusion
Full text linkWe propose a compositional analysis of an apparent linguistic illusion that productively arises with sentences like The importance of this position cannot be underestimated, featuring the prefix under- and a negated possibility modal. On what we term the ‘intended’ interpretation, the sentence means that the position’s importance is very high, while on what we call the ‘pedantic’ interpretation, the sentence means that the position’s importance is very low. Although the intended reading has been claimed to be illusory, we demonstrate that it arises from an inter- action between the scope of the negated modal, the monotonicity of the underlying degree set, and maximal informativity (Beck 2013; Hohaus & Bade 2022).
Keywords: linguistic illusions, degree semantics, monotonicity, maximal informativit