2,162 research outputs found
The encoding of countability and numerosity in nominal morphology
Full text linkThe aim of this research was to examine the role of Number morphology for what concerns the encoding of information about the numerosity and countability of referents. The issue was approached both from a theoretical and from an experimental point of view. Number morphology is a widespread category and only few languages in the world seem to completely lack it (Corbett, 2000). Why is Number such a common feature among natural languages? In general, it can be assumed that language grammaticalises only some of all the possible information present in the referential world. The fact that information about numerosity is rammaticalised in such a widespread way in natural languages may mirror the salient role that such information has from a biological point of view, i.e. the fact that this information stems from cognitive processes that are biologically relevant in order to behave successfully in a given environment (Hauser & Spelke 2004). Language provides the means to communicate salient information readily. Morphology is one of these means in general, and Number morphology is the one specifically set for the encoding of the information about numerosity of referents. Number morphology is designed to convey salient information expressing numerosities, but this possibility takes place only when the noun is linked to a countable interpretation. Within morphological Number systems, countability plays a crucial role: in fact, in absence of countability, nouns are not inflected but assigned a Number value by default. Although the great amount of interest dedicated to countability both by theoretical and experimental approaches, no account has fully succeeded in explaining countability and its relation with morphological Number. In the present thesis we propose a formal model and provide empirical data - collected in quantitative morphology, psycholinguistics and language acquisition – in order to support the idea that in encoding countability more than one factor comes into play: namely, core grammar rules, effects of non-strictly grammatical processing of linguistic stimuli, and effects related to non-verbal cognitive processes that deal with the information encoded into language
Referential Numerosity and Morphosyntactic Number Agreement: A Psycholinguistic Study on Italian qualche/alcuni
No full textThe present study aims at shedding new light on the relationship between morphological Number and the numerosity of the referent(s). Previous studies exploiting agreement violations suggested a possible involvement of numerosity processing in the encoding of morphological Number (Carreiras et al., 2010). By employing the two Italian quantifiers qualche and alcuni, and exploiting their diverging requirements for Number agreement, we developed a picture–phrase matching paradigm. This minimal pair enabled us to test the hypothesis that when the morphological information of Number is incongruent with the numerosity encoded on the whole expression, more processing time is needed. The results are consistent with previous studies, and add evidence to a relationship between certain aspects of language and numerical cognition. Notably, contrary to previous literature, our results were obtained by exploiting well-formed expressions only
Semantic interpretability speeds up the processing of morphological features. A psycholinguistic experiment on gender agreement
No full textGender Errors in Aphasia Reveal a Projection for Contextually Dependent Gender in Syntax
No full textMass is more: The conceiving of (un)countability and its encoding into language in 5-year-old-children
No full textGender Agreement: a psycholinguistic and aphasia case study.
No full textIntroduction
Some Italian nouns occur as couples like cavallo-cavalla (horse-mare) showing a systematic relation between their grammatical Gender and the sex of their referents. An aphasia case study by Franzon, Bertocci and Semenza (2013) suggested that in these nouns Gender could be assigned depending on the referential context.
Here we study Agreement processes in the Determiner Phrase (DP) with reference to contextually inflected nouns, by contrasting them with nouns whose gender presents the more common inherent inflection for Gender. The study comprises an experiment on normal participants and preliminary observation in two aphasic patients unaffected by agrammatism.
Methods
Noun phrases made of a noun and an adjective appeared on the screen. One of the two words lacked the ending morpheme (e.g. COLP_ GROSSO). 24 participants were asked to complete the word with either –a or –o (endings for masculine and feminine nouns in Italian). Response times and accuracy were measured.
Materials:
a) 24 nouns, 12 masculine + 12 feminine, like CAVALLO – CAVALLA (Context Dependent Gender.)
b) 24 nouns, 12 masculine + 12 feminine, like COLPO-COLPA, ‘hit’ - ‘guilt’ (Inherent Gender).
c) 96 filler nouns
Type of Completion (on noun or adjective) and Position (noun first, adjective first) were considered.
The same material was administered off-line to one person with transcortical motor aphasia (MM) and to another person with conduction aphasia (DMD). None of these patients showed signs of agrammatism.
Results
Context Dependent nouns were completed more accurately and significantly (p < 0.001) faster (949) than Inherent Gender nouns (1003).
Adjectives were completed more accurately and significantly (p < 0.001) faster (951 msec) than nouns (1001 msec).
MA committed 8/48 errors in Context Dependent and 11/48 errors in Inherent Gender nouns.
DMD committed 2/48 errors in Context Dependent and 7/48 errors in Inherent Gender nouns.
Discussion
Results match with theories (Alexiadou 2004; Franzon et al. 2013) that propose two types of gender: a non-interpretable one, set by the lexicon and thus inherent on the noun (as in colpo – colpa); and a variable one (as in cavallo-cavalla), interpretable at a semantic level, assigned in syntax on the basis of the referential context. This latter condition seems to require less processing costs, even if less common; when the morpheme lacks semantic interpretability processing costs are higher.
Completion on adjectives is faster because such an operation consists in copying into the higher DP positions the morphosyntactic values of Gender that have already been processed in the noun; conversely, when the noun has to be completed, it has to undergo further processing before rising to the DP to check the agreement in a proper position
One can be some but some cannot be one: ERP correlates of numerosity incongruence are different for singular and plural
Full text linkHumans can communicate information on numerosity by means of number words (e.g., one hundred, a couple), but also through Number morphology (e.g., through the singular vs the plural forms of a noun). Agreement violations involving Number morphology (e.g., *one apples) are well known to elicit specific ERP components such as the Left Anterior Negativity (LAN); yet, the relationship between a morphological Number value (e.g., singular vs plural) and its referential numerosity has rarely been considered in the literature. Moreover, even if agreement violations have been proven to be very useful, they do not typically characterise everyday language usage, thus narrowing the scope of the results.
In this study we investigated Number morphology from a different perspective, by focusing on the ERP correlates of congruence and incongruence between a depicted numerosity and noun phrases. To this aim we designed a picture–phrase matching paradigm in Italian. In each trial, a picture depicting one or four objects was followed by a grammatically well-formed phrase made up of a quantifier and a content noun inflected either in the singular or in the plural. When analysing ERP time-locked to the content noun, plural phrases after pictures presenting one object elicited a larger negativity, similar to a LAN effect. No significant congruence effect was found in the case of the phrases whose morphological Number value conveyed a numerosity of one. Our results suggest that: 1) incongruence elicits a LAN-like negativity independently from the grammaticality of the utterances and irrespectively of the P600 component; 2) the reference to a numerosity can be partially encoded in an incremental way when processing Number morphology; and, most importantly, 3) the processing of the morphological Number value of plural is different from that of singular as the former shows a narrower interpretability than the latter
"The love that made hell, paradise." Ouida re-writing the Paolo and Francesca theme in Held in Bondage
No full textThe bestselling Victorian author Ouida reveals in her novels, and, in particular, Held in Bondage, an extraordinary knowledge od Dante, by using characters and themes from the Commedia. The Paolo and Francesca theme actually constitutes part of the plot of the novel and is to be found in many of her other works, short stories and non-fiction writing
HERStory Makers 2023: Francesca Fotheringham
No full textFrancesca Fotheringham is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Edinburgh studying educational psychology with a focus on neurodiversity. She took part in HERStory Makers 2023.What is HERStory Makers?HERStory Makers is a social media competition for female-identifying early career researchers to share their research, their career journeys, and to inspire the next generation. Winners are selected by public vote. HERStory Makers is also part of EXPLORATHON, Scotland's contribution to European Researchers' Night.In 2022-23, EXPLORATHON Francescasupported by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number EP/X020762/1].Author contributions to contentFrancesca conceived, planned, and recorded the video content. Kirsty Ross edited the video content to insert HERStory Maker credits, added subtitles, and reduce video length to below Twitter/X limit of 2 mins and 20 secs.</p
- …
