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2. Measuring free word order: Some empirical and modeling perspectivesArthur Stepanov, invited lecture at foreign university Abstract: Languages manifesting flexibility of word order (within the sentence's compositional meaning) have always presented a challenge for modern theories of syntax requiring any deviation from the canonical word order to be grammatically motivated. Parasyntactic motivations such as information structural or stylistic requirements may account for some portion of this flexibility, but not all of it. In addition, native speakers do not necessarily accept canonical and non-canonical word orders to an equal extent. In fact, the latter typically receive lower acceptability scores than the former, albeit above the subjective threshold for what would count as "ungrammatical". Some of the combinatorially possible word orders are not acceptable at all. In this experimental study we scrutinize different word order sequences in a free word order language (Serbo-Croatian) and attempt to isolate independent displacement factors responsible for various elements of the sentence appearing away from their canonical structural positions. We explore differential and cumulative effects of these independent factors to predict speakers' acceptability scores.
Keywords: Free word order, experimental syntax, Serbo-Croatian, sentence acceptability task
Published in RUNG: 11.02.2021; Views: 2508; Downloads: 0
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3. On the Cost of Scalar Implicatures : An Eye-Tracking StudyGreta Mazzaggio, Anne Reboul, Chiara Caretta, Mélody Darblade, Jean-Baptiste van der Henst, Anne Cheylus, Penka Stateva, 2019, published scientific conference contribution abstract Keywords: scalar implicature, reaction time, eye-tracking, sentence evaluation task
Published in RUNG: 02.09.2019; Views: 3110; Downloads: 0
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4. Quantifiers and pragmatic enrichmentPenka Stateva, unpublished invited conference lecture Abstract: One of the most studied scales in the literature on scalar implicatures is the quantifier scale. While the truth of 'some' is entailed by the truth of 'all', 'some' is felicitous only when 'all' is false. This opens the possibility that 'some' would be felicitous if, e.g., almost all of the objects in the restriction of the quantifier have the property ascribed by the nuclear scope. This prediction from the standard theory of quantifier interpretation clashes with native speakers’ intuitions. In Experiment 1 we report a questionnaire study on the perception of quantifier meanings in English, French, Slovenian and German which points to a cross-linguistic variation with respect to the perception of numerical bounds of the existential quantifier. In Experiment 2, using a picture choice task, we further examine whether the numerical bound differences correlate with differences in pragmatic interpretations of the quantifier 'some' in English and 'quelques' in French and interpret the results as supporting our hypothesis that 'some' and its cross-linguistic counterparts are subjected to different processes of pragmatic enrichment.
Keywords: quantifier, cross-linguistic variation, experimental pragmatics, picture choice task
Published in RUNG: 15.05.2019; Views: 3173; Downloads: 0
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7. Children's early bilingualism and musical training influence prosodic discrimination of sentences in an unknown languageArthur Stepanov, Matic Pavlič, Penka Stateva, Anne Reboul, 2018, original scientific article Abstract: This study investigated whether early bilingualism and early musical training positively influence the ability to discriminate between prosodic patterns corresponding to different syntactic structures in otherwise phonetically identical sentences in an unknown language. In a same-different discrimination task, participants (N = 108) divided into four groups (monolingual non-musicians, monolingual musicians, bilingual non-musicians, and bilingual musicians) listened to pairs of short sentences in a language unknown to them (French). In discriminating phonetically identical but prosodically different sentences, musicians, bilinguals, and bilingual musicians outperformed the controls. However, there was no interaction between bilingualism and musical training to suggest an additive effect. These results underscore the significant role of both types of experience in enhancing the listeners' sensitivity to prosodic information.
Keywords: prosody, bilingualism, same-different task, French, musical training, acoustics, brain
Published in RUNG: 10.01.2018; Views: 3961; Downloads: 0
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8. Two “many”-words in Slovenian : Experimental evidence for pragmatic strengtheningPenka Stateva, Arthur Stepanov, 2017, original scientific article Abstract: Slovenian features at least two lexical items that are potential semantic counterparts of the
English many, namely "veliko" and "precej", whose meaning appears close to identical. Yet speakers are
certain that the two items are not equivalent, although they find intuitively felt differences hard to pinpoint.
We argue that "precej" and "veliko" are lexically synonymous, but their meanings are pragmatically
strengthened under relevant conditions, which leads to subtle interpretative differences. Specifically, we
extend Krifka’s (2007) analysis of double negatives and propose that "veliko" is assigned the stereotypical
interpretation of a quantity degree word, whereas "precej" is identified with the non-stereotypical one and
consequently relates to moderately big amounts. To support this claim, we report the results of an experiment
involving a sentence-picture verification task, which highlight the similarities and contextually determined
differences in the use of both determiners. Our results suggest that the interpretation of "precej" is not consistent with relations in the upper part of the proportional scale and is dependent on whether or not it is in direct competition with "veliko" in the appropriate contexts.
Keywords: quantity determiner, Slovenian, pragmatic strengthening, stereotypical interpretation, sentence–picture verification task
Published in RUNG: 25.09.2017; Views: 4249; Downloads: 0
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