Gregory Ward

The handbook of pragmatics

The handbook of pragmatics , The handbook of pragmatics , کتابخانه دیجیتال جندی شاپور اهواز

Testing theories of language processing: an empirical investigation of the on-line lexical decision task.

On-line lexical decision has been used to test major theoretical hypotheses about language comprehension. Contrary to several current models, A. Sharkey and N. Sharkey (1992) found that a word in a sentence did not give facilitation to an immediately following, highly associated test item. In this article it is shown that such facilitation can be obtained. Other theories have proposed that syntactic processes supply antecedents for implicit anaphors. In using a test item that was an associate of the antecedent of the anaphor, the authors were unable to replicate previous findings of facilitation at but not before the site of the anaphor. Across 9 experiments, obtaining facilitation depended on the choice of control condition. This dependency raises questions about previous on-line lexical decision results that have been used to support the immediacy of syntactic processing.

On the topicalization of indefinite NPs

Abstract It has been claimed that felicitous Topicalization (TOP) disallows: preposed indefinite NPs in general, specific indefinites, and nonspecific indefinites. However, none of these claims can be maintained. An examination of naturally-occuring data reveals that, in fact, the definiteness distinction is irrelevant to TOP. What is relevant is that one of the discourse conditions that a felicitous TOP must meet is that the referent of the preposed NP stand in a salient partially ordered set relationship to previously evoked referents. Of course, referents related to the prior discourse are usually, but not necessarily, represented by definites, and it is no doubt this near match of form and function that has misled previous researchers.

The interpretation of the high-rise question contour in English

Abstract We investigate the meaning of the high-rise question contour in English, described in Pierrehumbert (1980) as ‘H ∗ H H%’. Previous studies have characterized this contour in terms of speaker attitude or in terms of the relationship of the propositional content of utterances to some aspect of their discourse context. Based on an analysis of naturally-occurring data, we propose that speakers employ H ∗ H H% to convey that the propositional content of the utterance is to be added to speaker and hearers ‘mutual beliefs’ (those shared by speaker and hearer and believed by them to be shared), and to question whether the hearer can relate that propositional content to the contents of the hearers own (unshared) beliefs.

The semantics and pragmatics of and everything

Abstract Distinguishing between semantic and pragmatic factors in utterance interpretation is often problematic. The meaning of and everything is a case in point. Unlike the meaning of other set-marking tags (cf. Ball and Ariel 1978), the meaning of and everything is non-compositional. We propose that and everything instantiates a type of open proposition, obtained by replacing the entire conjunction with a variable. Semantically, and everything conveys only that the variable is to be instantiated by at least one other (typically unspecified) member of some inferrable set. However, in certain contexts the use of and everything may also generate an R-implicature (Horn 1984) to the effect that the proposition in question is true not only of some other member(s) of the set, but in fact of all members. In addition, the use of an L+H ∗ pitch accent on and everything conveys that the anchoring constituent exemplifies a high value on some scale; which particular scale is evoked is inferrable from the anchoring element itself and the context.

The Discourse Functions of VP Preposing.

An analysis of a corpus of naturally-occurring data reveals that verb phrase preposing serves two functions in discourse: to affirm a speakers belief in a salient proposition explicitly evoked in the prior discourse, or to suspend a speakers belief in such a proposition. Various types of VP preposing are identified, based on the type of discourse connective that introduces the preposing and on the epistemic status, relative to the speaker, of the affirmed or suspended proposition. The felicity conditions on VP preposing are shown to be related to those of other OSV constructions in that (1) a particular anaphoric relation must obtain between the preposed element and the preceding discourse, and (2) the preposing must effect the instantiation of a salient open proposition presupposed in the discourse.*

On the Non-Unified Nature of Scalar Implicature: An Empirical Investigation

Scalar implicaure is often offered as the exemplar of generalized conversational implicature. However, despite the wealth of literature devoted to both the phenomenon in general and to specific examples, little attention has been paid to the various factors that may influence the generation and interpretation of scalar implicatures. This study employs the “Literal Lucy” methodology developed in Larson et al. (in press) to further investigate these factors in a controlled experimental setting. The results of our empirical investigation suggest that the type of scale employed affects whether or not speakers judge a particular scalar implicature to be part of the truth-conditional meaning of an utterance. Moreover, we found that features of the conversational context in which the implicature is situated also play an important role. Specifically, we have found that the number of scalar values evoked in the discourse context plays a significant role in the interpretation of scalar implicatures generated from gradable adjective scales but not other scale types. With respect to the effects of scale type, we have found that gradable adjectives were less frequently incorporated into truth-conditional meaning than cardinals, quantificational items, and ranked orderings. Additionally, ranked orderings were incorporated less than cardinals. Thus, the results from the current study show that the interpretation of scalar implicature is sensitive to both the associated scale type and discourse context.

Information Structure and Syntactic Structure

This article explores the interface between syntactic structure and information structure – in particular, the broad generalizations that can be made between certain noncanonical word orders and information-structural constraints on their use. Various ways of implementing the distinction between ‘given’ and ‘new’ information are described, and several classes of word orders (such as preposings, postposings, argument reversals, and clefts) are discussed in terms of the information-status constraints to which they are sensitive. It is argued that classes of related word orders share related constraints but that – both cross-linguistically and within a single language – there are also construction-specific constraints on the correlation between word order and information status.

A pragmatic analysis of tautological utternances

Abstract The interpretation of tautological utterances of the form, e.g., if it rains, it rains has generally been characterized in the literature as a case of Gricean conversational implicature (Grice 1975). However, in recent years, this analysis, and indeed the entire Gricean program, has come under attack. Wierzbicka (1987) contends that tautology must be seen as a language-specific, attitudinal phenomenon, thus, in her view, vitiating Grices universalist approach. In this paper, we take issue with this claim, pointing out certain flaws in Wierzbickas ‘radical semantics’ approach to tautology. We then propose a new Gricean account of tautological utterances based upon a large corpus of naturally occurring data.

On the Interpretation of VP Inversion in American English.

Previous functional analyses of American English inversion constructions (for example, Hartvigson & Jakobsen, I974; Gary, 1976; Green, I980, 1982) have recognized either implicitly or explicitly that inverted sentences and their canonical-word-order counterparts are semantically equivalent. None the less, in Ward & Birner (to appear), we describe a non-truth-conditional asymmetry between the interpretation of certain VP inversions and that of their canonical-word-order counterparts.2 Consider (ia) and (ib) in the following context: