Showing papers on "Antecedent (grammar) published in 2013"

Voice and Ellipsis

Abstract: Elided VPs and their antecedent VPs can mismatch in voice, with passive VPs being elided under apparent identity with active antecedent VPs, and vice versa. Such voice mismatches are not allowed in any other kind of ellipsis, such as sluicing and other clausal ellipses. These latter facts appear to indicate that the identity relation in ellipsis is sensitive to syntactic form, not merely to semantic form. The VPellipsis facts fall into place if the head that determines voice is external to the phrase being elided, here argued to be vP; such an account can only be framed in approaches that allow syntactic features to be separated from the heads on which they are morphologically realized. Alternatives to this syntactic, articulated view of ellipsis and voice either undergenerate or overgenerate.

The Influence of personal variables on salesperson selling orientation

Abstract: Customer oriented selling, defined as practicing the marketing concept at the level of the individual salesperson and customer (Saxe and Weitz 1982), is important in selling situations yet has received relatively little attention from marketers. As such, job tenure, gender, organizational commitment, work involvement, and supervisory support are all examined as potential antecedent variables to customer oriented selling. The study, conducted on two different samples of sales personnel, revealed that organizational commitment is significantly related to selling style. However, the significance of the other variables differed among these two groups, suggesting that the antecedents of a customer oriented selling approach may indeed be product/service specific, job specific, or some combination thereof.

The Effects of Security Threats on Antecedents of Police Legitimacy: Findings from a Quasi-Experiment in Israel

Abstract: Objectives: Examine the relative importance of “police performance” and “procedural justice” as antecedents of police legitimacy in situations of acute security threats, in comparison to situations of “no threat.”Method: A unique security situation in Israel allowed for a natural experiment. Using survey data and a multivariate regression approach, the authors compare the importance of “procedural justice” and “police performance” in “Sderot,” an Israeli town facing immediate security threats, with other Israeli communities that did not suffer from specific security threats at the time.Results: As expected, assessments of police performance did increase in importance for the public under threat. At the same time and contrary to the authors' hypothesis, evaluations of procedural justice did not decline in importance, and, what is more, procedural justice remained the primary antecedent of police legitimacy in both conditions.Conclusions: There does not seem to be a zero-sum game between “police performance...

Response particles as propositional anaphors

Abstract: The paper explains response particles like yes and no as anaphoric ele- ments that pick up propositional discourse referents that are introduced by pre- ceding sentences. It is argued that negated antecedent clauses introduce two propositional discourse referents, which results in ambiguities of answers that are partly resolved by pragmatic optimization. The paper also discusses response particles like okay, right, uh-huh, uh-uh, and German ja, nein and doch.

Predictive processing of syntactic structure: Sluicing and ellipsis in real-time sentence processing

Abstract: This paper investigates the prediction of syntactic structure during sentence processing, using constructions that temporarily allow a sluicing interpretation in English. Making use of two well-known properties of sluicing and pronoun interpretation—connectivity effects and the local antecedent requirement on reflexives, respectively—we show that (1) the parser chooses a sluicing structure over other possible structures when sluicing is a possibility, and (2) the structure which the parser posits for sluicing involves detailed hierarchical syntactic structure. A self-paced reading experiment and three offline experiments (two acceptability rating studies and a sentence completion study) find evidence that readers immediately try to associate a reflexive pronoun embedded inside a wh-phrase with a potential antecedent in the preceding clause. However, this association is made only if a sluicing structure is a possible continuation of the sentence. This finding suggests that readers actively anticipated a sl...

Inferential Conditionals and Evidentiality

Abstract: Many conditionals seem to convey the existence of a link between their antecedent and consequent We draw on a recently proposed typology of conditionals to argue for an old philosophical idea according to which the link is inferential in nature We show that the proposal has explanatory force by presenting empirical results on the evidential meaning of certain English and Dutch modal expressions

Scopability and sluicing

Abstract: This paper analyzes sluicing as anaphora to an anti-constituent (a continuation), that is, to the semantic remnant of a clause from which a subconstituent has been removed. For instance, in Mary said that [John saw someone yesterday], but she didn’t say who, the antecedent clause is John saw someone yesterday, the subconstituent targeted for removal is someone, and the ellipsis site following who is anaphoric to the scope remnant John saw ___ yesterday. I provide a compositional syntax and semantics on which the relationship between the targeted subconstituent and the rest of the antecedent clause is one of scopability, not movement or binding. This correctly predicts that sluicing should be sensitive to scope islands, but not to syntactic islands. Unlike the currently dominant approaches to sluicing, there is no need to posit syntactic structure internal to the ellipsis site, nor is there any need for a semantic mutual-entailment requirement. Nevertheless, the fragment handles phenomena usually taken to suggest a close syntactic correspondence between the antecedent and the sluice, including case matching, voice matching, and verbal argument structure matching. In addition, the analysis handles phenomena exhibiting antecedent/sluice mismatches, including examples such as John remembers meeting someone, but he doesn’t remember who, Open image in new window, and especially so-called sprouting examples such as John left, but I don’t know when, in which there is no overt subconstituent to target for removal. In Sect. 5, I show how the analysis accounts for Andrews Amalgams such as Sally ate [I don’t know what] today, in which the antecedent surrounds the sluiced clause. Finally, in Sect. 6, I propose a new semantic constraint on sluicing: the Answer Ban, which says that the antecedent clause must not resolve, or even partially resolve, the issue raised by the sluiced interrogative.

Verb phrase ellipsis: The view from information structure

Abstract: An analysis of antecedent mismatch effects under ellipsis is proposed to explain why some cases of verb phrase ellipsis exhibit a sizeable penalty when the elided target is not structurally matched to its antecedent, while other cases show little or no penalty at all. The proposal attributes the penalty in the former case to an information-structural constraint governing contrastive topics, and it is argued that previous accounts have misattributed that penalty to a licensing constraint on ellipsis. Results from four experiments (three off-line acceptability, one on-line self-paced reading) confirm that the relative size of the mismatch penalty can be reliably predicted based on the information structure of the clause containing the ellipsis and that acceptability differences associated with information structure are observable even in the absence of ellipsis.

Title of dissertation: RESPECTING RELATIONS: MEMORY ACCESS AND ANTECEDENT RETRIEVAL IN INCREMENTAL SENTENCE PROCESSING

Abstract: Title of dissertation: RESPECTING RELATIONS: MEMORY ACCESS AND ANTECEDENT RETRIEVAL IN INCREMENTAL SENTENCE PROCESSING Dave W. Kush, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Professor Colin Phillips Department of Linguistics This dissertation uses the processing of anaphoric relations to probe how linguistic information is encoded in and retrieved from memory during real-time sentence comprehension. More specifically, the dissertation attempts to resolve a tension between the demands of a linguistic processor implemented in a general-purpose cognitive architecture and the demands of abstract grammatical constraints that govern language use. The source of the tension is the role that abstract configurational relations (such as c-command, Reinhart 1983) play in constraining computations. Anaphoric dependencies are governed by formal grammatical constraints stated in terms of relations. For example, Binding Principle A (Chomsky 1981) requires that antecedents for local anaphors (like the English reciprocal each other) bear the c-command relation to those anaphors. In incremental sentence processing, antecedents of anaphors must be retrieved from memory. Recent research has motivated a model of processing that exploits a cue-based, associative retrieval process in content-addressable memory (e.g. Lewis, Vasishth & Van Dyke 2006) in which relations such as c-command are difficult to use as cues for retrieval. As such, the c-command constraints of formal grammars are predicted to be poorly implemented by the retrieval mechanism. I examine retrieval’s sensitivity to three constraints on anaphoric dependencies: Principle A (via Hindi local reciprocal licensing), the Scope Constraint on bound-variable pronoun licensing (often stated as a c-command constraint, though see Barker 2012), and Crossover constraints on pronominal binding (Postal 1971, Wasow 1972). The data suggest that retrieval exhibits fidelity to the constraints: structurally inaccessible NPs that match an anaphoric element in morphological features do not interfere with the retrieval of an antecedent in most cases considered. In spite of this alignment, I argue that retrieval’s apparent sensitivity to c-command constraints need not motivate a memory access procedure that makes direct reference to c-command relations. Instead, proxy features and general parsing operations conspire to mimic the extension of a system that respects c-command constraints. These strategies provide a robust approximation of grammatical performance while remaining within the confines of a independentlymotivated general-purpose cognitive architecture. RESPECTING RELATIONS: MEMORY ACCESS AND ANTECEDENT RETRIEVAL IN INCREMENTAL SENTENCE PROCESSING

Respecting Relations: Memory Access and Antecedent Retrieval in Incremental Sentence Processing.

Abstract: Title of dissertation: RESPECTING RELATIONS: MEMORY ACCESS AND ANTECEDENT RETRIEVAL IN INCREMENTAL SENTENCE PROCESSING Dave W. Kush, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Professor Colin Phillips Department of Linguistics This dissertation uses the processing of anaphoric relations to probe how linguistic information is encoded in and retrieved from memory during real-time sentence comprehension. More specifically, the dissertation attempts to resolve a tension between the demands of a linguistic processor implemented in a general-purpose cognitive architecture and the demands of abstract grammatical constraints that govern language use. The source of the tension is the role that abstract configurational relations (such as c-command, Reinhart 1983) play in constraining computations. Anaphoric dependencies are governed by formal grammatical constraints stated in terms of relations. For example, Binding Principle A (Chomsky 1981) requires that antecedents for local anaphors (like the English reciprocal each other) bear the c-command relation to those anaphors. In incremental sentence processing, antecedents of anaphors must be retrieved from memory. Recent research has motivated a model of processing that exploits a cue-based, associative retrieval process in content-addressable memory (e.g. Lewis, Vasishth & Van Dyke 2006) in which relations such as c-command are difficult to use as cues for retrieval. As such, the c-command constraints of formal grammars are predicted to be poorly implemented by the retrieval mechanism. I examine retrieval’s sensitivity to three constraints on anaphoric dependencies: Principle A (via Hindi local reciprocal licensing), the Scope Constraint on bound-variable pronoun licensing (often stated as a c-command constraint, though see Barker 2012), and Crossover constraints on pronominal binding (Postal 1971, Wasow 1972). The data suggest that retrieval exhibits fidelity to the constraints: structurally inaccessible NPs that match an anaphoric element in morphological features do not interfere with the retrieval of an antecedent in most cases considered. In spite of this alignment, I argue that retrieval’s apparent sensitivity to c-command constraints need not motivate a memory access procedure that makes direct reference to c-command relations. Instead, proxy features and general parsing operations conspire to mimic the extension of a system that respects c-command constraints. These strategies provide a robust approximation of grammatical performance while remaining within the confines of a independentlymotivated general-purpose cognitive architecture. RESPECTING RELATIONS: MEMORY ACCESS AND ANTECEDENT RETRIEVAL IN INCREMENTAL SENTENCE PROCESSING

Innovations in Small and Medium-Sized Family Firms

Abstract: Small and medium-sized firms are a prevalent organizational form in Germany. Their importance for the German economy is indisputable. Most of them are global market leaders in their niches and are considered to be a force for innovation in the German economy. The ability to be innovative in niche markets has been identified as the antecedent of their strong, or even dominant, competitive positions in their industries. The driver of this innovation success may well be the family, which distinguishes family firms from non-family firms. Nils Kraiczy analyzes if a family influences innovation in a family firm and if this influence has only positive effects. The dissertation focuses on the impact of top management teams on innovations interacting with family firm-specific characteristics. The author shows the complexity of family influence by presenting different effects of each investigated family firm-specific characteristic on the relationship between top management team behavior and innovation.

Processing verb-phrase ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence against the syntactic account

Abstract: Theories differ as to how people recover the meaning of verb-phrase (VP) ellipsis. According to the syntactic account, people reproduce the syntactic structure of the antecedent during the processing of VP ellipsis. This account thus predicts that the ellipsis site contains syntactic information. Using the structural priming paradigm, we found that, in Mandarin, an ellipsis prime (a double-object or prepositional-object dative antecedent plus a VP ellipsis) was less effective in priming than a full-form prime sentence (the same antecedent plus the full-form equivalent of the VP ellipsis) but behaved similarly to a baseline prime (the same antecedent plus a neutral sentence). The result thus suggests that syntactic structure is not reproduced at the ellipsis site and supports the semantic account in which VP ellipsis is interpreted via a semantic representation. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Backward fuzzy rule interpolation with multiple missing values

Abstract: Fuzzy rule interpolation offers a useful means for reducing the complexity of fuzzy models, more importantly, it makes inference possible in sparse rule-based systems. Backward fuzzy rule interpolation is a recently proposed technique which extends the potential existing methods, allowing interpolation to be carried out when a certain antecedent of observation is absent. However, only one missing antecedent may be inferred or interpolated using the other given antecedents and the consequent. In this paper, two approaches are proposed in an attempt to perform backward interpolation with multiple missing antecedent values. Both approaches assume a restricted model with multiple inputs and a single output, where every rule has the same number of antecedents. Experimental comparative studies are carried out to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed work.

Deriving Split-Antecedent Relative Clauses

Abstract: There is difficulty representing relative clauses with split antecedents (Perlmutter & Ross 1970, McCawley 1982, Link 1984, Wilder 1994, a.o.): (i) Mary met a man and John met a woman who know each other well. In this paper, I demonstrate that existing analyses, both movement and base generation approaches, have difficulties accounting for split-antecedent relative clauses (SARC) without construction-specific stipulations. Even the most promising accounts do not make predictions about the actual behavior of SARC. Formally, I propose that traditional approaches have difficulty because of how the notion of chain is represented. I provide a preliminary analysis using a novel system of representing narrow syntax that does not run into the type of problem that traditional approaches do. SARC are naturally predicted from the way I propose to treat coordination within the new system. In doing this, I argue for another direction of our model of narrow syntax (cf. Vergnaud to appear), one which redefines the representation of a chain and instead represents grammatical relationships as local – a generalized form of Multidominance. This approach to syntax makes wide-reaching predictions, which I do not discuss here. But, I show that this direction derives SARC naturally, without construction-specific stipulations. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/ vol19/iss1/14 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 19.1, 2013 Deriving Split-Antecedent Relative Clauses Katherine McKinney-Bock *

Information structure affects the resolution of the subject pronouns 'er' and 'der' in spoken German discourse

Abstract: Two visual-world eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the resolution of ambiguous German pronouns, the personal pronoun (er) and the d-pronoun (der) in spoken discourse. Specifically, the influence of the order of mention and the information status of the antecedent candidates on the resolution preferences following canonical and non-canonical antecedent structures was explored. The results suggest that the two pronominal forms have different coreference functions when they follow canonical topic-comment antecedent structures, in that personal pronouns prefer first-mentioned topical antecedents and d-pronouns second-mentioned non-topical antecedents. However, after non-canonically marked topic-focus antecedent structures, the pronouns had overlapping functions, namely an overall preference towards the second-mentioned focused entity. The findings suggest that pronoun resolution is affected by the information status of the antecedent candidates and that resolution preferences change across antecedent word orders.

The on-line processing of unaccusativity in Greek agrammatism

Abstract: We investigated the on-line processing of unaccusative and unergative sentences in a group of eight Greek-speaking individuals diagnosed with Broca aphasia and a group of language-unimpaired subjects used as the baseline. The processing of unaccusativity refers to the reactivation of the postverbal trace by retrieving the mnemonic representation of the verb's syntactically defined antecedent provided in the early part of the sentence. Our results demonstrate that the Broca group showed selective reactivation of the antecedent for the unaccusatives. We consider several interpretations for our data, including explanations focusing on the transitivization properties of nonactive and active voice-alternating unaccusatives, the costly procedure claimed to underlie the parsing of active nonvoice-alternating unaccusatives, and the animacy of the antecedent modulating the syntactic choices of the patients.

On Coliva's Judgmental Hinges

Abstract: Annalisa Coliva's Moore and Wittgenstein: Scepticism, Certainty, and Common Sense does On Certainty, and Wittgenstein generally, a great service: it is the first in-depth study of Moore and Wittgenstein that places On Certainty within current epistemology. By this I mean, that it discusses its content, reception and repercussions in the technical terms of current epistemology and in the midst of current epistemologists. But it also manages to do this without losing the non-specialist reader to the often bewildering jargon of epistemology, and without viewing hinge certainty as an epistemic certainty. There is much that I agree with in Coliva’s reading of On Certainty, but her view of hinges as both judgments and norms seems to me to go against the spirit and the letter of On Certainty. In what follows, I will be mainly concerned with that view, but will conclude by adding a few words on Coliva's rejection of foundationalism in On Certainty. In her Introduction, Coliva refers to my classification of the main four 'readings' of On Certainty: the framework; the transcendental; the epistemic; and the therapeutic readings1, and situates herself as a framework reader, but with a difference. She agrees that Wittgenstein takes hinge certainties to be rules rather than empirical propositions, and that they are therefore not truth-evaluable (2010, 6-7), but she finds this problematic: to say that 'Here is my hand' is neither true nor false when I'm holding it in front of my eyes in optimal cognitive circumstances sounds 'extremely weird', and some hinges, such as '"Nobody's ever been on the moon" appear false to us' (2010, 7-8). The weirdness felt by Coliva is reminiscent of Moore’s discomfort upon hearing Wittgenstein's 'puzzling assertion that 3+3=6 (and all rules of deduction, similarly) is neither true nor false' (MWL 73, 80). But Wittgenstein himself warned that this would be ‘apt to give an uncomfortable feeling’ (MWL 73). Wittgenstein’s point in barring truth-evaluability from grammatical rules, of which mathematical ones2, is to insist on their normative (as opposed to descriptive or evaluative) status: '"3+3=6" is a rule as to the way we are going to talk ... it is a preparation for a description' (MWL 72). So that grammatical rules (or as Coliva prefers to call them: meaning constitutive rules) can be said to be preparation for, or antecedent to judgment, rather than themselves (expressions/instances of) judgments. However – perhaps because of the 'weirdness' in saying that 'Here is my hand' is not true as I'm holding it in front of my eyes in

A solution for resolving inter-sentential anaphoric pronouns for Vietnamese paragraphs composing two single sentences

Abstract: The aim of this paper is proposing a solution for resolving inter-sentential anaphoric pronouns for Vietnamese paragraphs in which each paragraph composes only two single sentences We present the solution through two phases: phase one is posing suitable finding antecedent strategies for each pronoun; phase two is presenting the mechanisms which are performed in GULP (Graph Unification Logic Programming) for implementing these strategies In this research, we classify the paragraphs into four groups based on distinct characteristics so that we can propose the suitable finding antecedent strategy for each group

Getting to 'No': The method of contested exchange

Abstract: Policy processes frequently fail to reach policy recommendations or the recommendations fail in practice. An 'antecedent failure' occurs when a policy problem is not perceived in advance as unstructured and consensus methods ill-equipped to grappling with a lack of structure are used. By contrast, dissensus can be better for structuring policy problems, and a method of 'contested exchange' has been developed and evaluated for this purpose. Disputed aspects of aquaculture provide ready examples of antecedent failure and unstructured policy problems. The method of contested exchange is used to provide structure, and a number of virtues of the method are discussed. Copyright The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.

Who is who? Interpretation of multiple occurrences of the Chinese reflexive: evidence from real-time sentence processing.

Abstract: Theoretical linguists claim that the notorious reflexive ziji ‘self’ in Mandarin Chinese, if occurring more than once in a single sentence, can take distinct antecedents. This study tackles possibly the most interesting puzzle in the linguistic literature, investigating how two occurrences of ziji in a single sentence are interpreted and whether or not there are mixed readings, i.e., these zijis are interpretively bound by distinct antecedents. Using 15 Chinese sentences each having two zijis, we conducted two sentence reading experiments based on a modified self-paced reading paradigm. The general interpretation patterns observed showed that the majority of participants associated both zijis with the same local antecedent, which was consistent with Principle A of the Standard Binding Theory and previous experimental findings involving a single ziji. In addition, mixed readings also occurred, but did not pattern as claimed in the theoretical linguistic literature (i.e., one ziji is bound by a long-distance antecedent and the other by a local antecedent). Based on these results, we argue that: (i) mixed readings were due to manifold, interlocking and conflicting perspectives taken by the participants; and (ii) cases of multiple occurrences of ziji taking distinct antecedents are illicit in Chinese syntax, since the speaker, when expressing a sentence, can select only one P(erspective)-Center that referentially denotes the psychological perspective in which the sentence is situated.

Trust and Member Satisfaction in a Developing Virtual Organization: The Roles of Leader Contact and Experience with Technology

Abstract: Previous research suggests that trust is an important antecedent to effective collaboration in virtual settings. The current research utilized survey data obtained from a developing virtual organization to examine the relationship between trust and satisfaction and the extent to which leadership contact factored into trust and satisfaction within the developing virtual organization. Additionally, previous experience with technology was proposed to moderate the relationship between leader contact and trust. Results indicated that contact with multiple leaders was positively related to perceptions of trust within the organization. Further, perceptions of trust were related to satisfaction with relationships within the organization. The proposed moderation was not supported. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Gender/sex discrepancies in pronominal references to animals: a statistical analysis

Abstract: Although the English gender system is a semantic system largely based on sex, it is well known that in references to animals there is widespread discrepancy between pronominal gender and sex, and that gender selection is dependent on speaker's point of view (degree of interest in the animal, projection of personality and so on). What is yet to be established, however, is whether point of view still prevails in references to animals when the antecedent noun specifies the sex of the referent (e.g. stallion, ewe). In that case the neuter is known to occur but there is no quantitative assessment of the phenomenon, although it is crucial to understanding the influence of sex on gender selection. This article therefore proposes a statistical analysis of gender use in personal pronouns focusing exclusively on cases in which the antecedent noun specifies the sex of the animal. The analysis is carried out at the scale of the multi-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), using Pearson's chi-square test complemented by the odds ratio estimate. Three questions are considered: how common is the neuter? Is its relative frequency the same with female animals as with males? Finally, do the proportions vary according to the position of the anaphor relative to its antecedent?

The Literary Effect of Gender Discord in the Book of Ruth

Abstract: In the book of Ruth there are numerous instances of disagreement in gender between a pronoun and its antecedent. Without discounting the various philo logical explanations that have been given for this disagreement, this article argues that the gender discord is also a literary device that makes an important contribution to the book's narrative design and its development of characters. The laconic style of Hebrew narrative usually offers no glimpse of characters' inner lives, but by recognizing the concentration of discordant forms in Naomi's speech, we can appreciate how they characterize her grief and her ambivalence toward Ruth. The discord also highlights the theme of gender reversal in the book of Ruth. However the examples of gender discord might be explained grammatically, they also play an integral role in the characterization of Naomi and her relationship with Ruth. Disagreement in gender between a pronoun and its antecedent is common enough in Biblical Hebrew that it has been treated in the fields major reference grammars. Most often, the gender discord consists of a masculine pronoun stand ing for a feminine noun, and the grammars agree that this replacement is related to "a weakening in the distinction of gender" by which the feminine plural suffix was subsumed under its masculine counterpart.1 Furthermore, such disagreement has been regarded as a late phenomenon that is especially prevalent in the later books of the Hebrew Bible and also in the Dead Sea Scrolls.2

The Predictiveness of Achievement Goals: A 2 × 2 Framework Analysis From a Social Cognitive Perspective

Abstract: Using the Revised Achievement Goal Questionnaire (AGQ-R) (Elliot & Murayama, 2008), we explored first-year university students’ achievement goal orientations on the premise of the 2 × 2 model. Similar to recent studies (Elliot & Murayama, 2008; Elliot & Thrash, 2010), we conceptualized a model that included both antecedent (i.e., enactive learning experience) and consequence (i.e., intrinsic motivation and academic achievement) of achievement goals. Two hundred seventy-seven university students (151 women, 126 men) participated in the study. Structural equation modeling procedures yielded evidence that showed the predictive effects of enactive learning experience and mastery goals on intrinsic motivation. Academic achievement was influenced intrinsic motivation, performance-approach goals, and enactive learning experience. Enactive learning experience also served as an antecedent of the four achievement goal types. On the whole, evidence obtained supports the AGQ-R and contributes, theoretically, to 2 × 2 model.

Sloppy identity unbound

Abstract: Reinhart (1983) claims that only pronouns whose antecedents c-command them may give rise to sloppy identity readings. This paper presents counterexamples to this claim; for instance, referring to the famous 1960 televised presidential debate, it is acceptable to say: "Kennedy looked good. People voted for him. Nixon looked bad. People didn't." Despite the fact that the antecedent "Kennedy" for the pronoun "him" is in a previous sentence, this pronoun allows a sloppy identity reading wherein the fourth sentence ("People didn't.") means that people didn't vote for Nixon. To analyze such cases, I first propose an extension to the ~ focus operator due to Rooth (1992), allowing this operator to alter the assignment function used to interpret pronouns. One construction where Rooth places ~ is in the answers to questions. My new meaning for ~ explains why pronouns are so constrained in answers, e.g., "Who does John like? He[=John] likes Mary." Next, I argue for the Question-Under-Discussion (QUD) model of discourse described in Roberts (1996), which theorizes that every sentence is the answer to an explicit or implicit question. Finally, I show that unbound sloppy identity can be analyzed as cases where pronouns are constrained by antecedents in implicit questions. Along the way, I argue that the QUD model is compatible with the coherence relation model of discourse due to Hobbs (1979), explaining how coherence can constrain pronoun reference as well.

Systems and methods for associating related merchants

Abstract: A computer-implemented method for associating a merchant with an aggregate merchant uses a computing device having a processor and a memory. The method includes identifying an association rule for the aggregate merchant, including one or more antecedents. Each antecedent includes a model value for the antecedent associated with the aggregate merchant. The method also includes identifying one or more merchant data values associated with the merchant. Each of the one or more merchant data values correspond to one of the one or more antecedents. The method further includes applying the association rule to the one or more merchant data values by comparing the model value for each antecedent with a merchant data value associated with the corresponding antecedent, thereby generating a confidence score for the merchant. The confidence score represents a likelihood the merchant is associated with the aggregate merchant. The method also includes outputting the confidence score.

Effects of Clefting and Left-Dislocation on Subject and Object Pronoun Resolution in Spanish

Abstract: A general principle of human communication is that we tend to make our communicative interchanges as informative as necessary but not more informative than necessary (Grice, 1975; Levinson, 1987, 1991), This principle has major consequences for communication: As discourse unfolds, when we need to refer back to a previously-mentioned entity, we use shorter and less specific forms of reference (e.g. pronouns). Resolving the dependencies established between referring expressions and the entities they represent (their antecedents) is crucial for a successful communication. Theories of reference that have been put forward to account for reference resolution (e.g. Ariel’s 1990 Accessibility Theory, Grosz et al.’s 1995 Centering Theory, among others) have been predominantly concerned with the cognitive status of the antecedent in the interlocutors’ current mental model in terms of availability (i.e. the probability of retrieving an antecedent for a pronoun) and accessibility (i.e. how fast this is done), and they all seem to agree upon the fact that the more reduced a referring expression is, the more salient or prominent its referent needs to be in the minds of the discourse participants. In other words, the more salient the antecedent, the more accessible it is in the interlocutors’ minds and, consequently, the more likely it will be subsequently referred back to by a pronoun by the speaker, and the faster it will interpreted by the hearer as an antecedent of a given pronoun. The conception of a salient antecedent as a “referent that is prominently represented in the mental models that the speakers and listeners construct in the course of a discourse” (Kaiser & Trueswell, 2011), or that is in the current focus of attention (Gundel et al., 1993) seems to be generally accepted. Crucially, however, defining the factors that make a referent more prominent or salient than others has proved to be the locus of a great deal of disagreement among researchers (see Frazier, 2012 for a recent overview). Factors like the order of mention (first mention > other positions, e.g. Carreiras et al., 1995; Gernsbacher, 1997; Gernsbacher & Hargreaves, 1988), the grammatical function (subject > object > other functions, e.g. Crawley et al., 1990; Gordon et al., 1999; Grober et al., 1978) and the discourse status (topic > focus, e.g. Arnold, 1999) of the antecedent are recurrent candidates. Unfortunately, in many of these studies, these factors have not been adequately teased apart. In order to overcome this potential shortcoming, subsequent studies tried to disentangle these factors by manipulating the discourse status of antecedents in the experimental sentences with the ultimate goal of understanding what lies at the core of salience (e.g. Arnold, 1999; Colonna et al., 2010, 2012a; Cowles, 2003; Cowles et al., 2007). However, these studies have yielded mixed results (see section 2.3) and, consequently, further research is still in order.

Strict and sloppy reflexives in VP-ellipsis

Abstract: This thesis investigates three of the ways causality influences the resolution of reflexives in VP-ellipsis to either a strict or sloppy interpretation. It looks at structural factors (position of the elided clause relative to the antecedent clause), discourse relations (parallelism versus cause-effect), and lexical influences (implicit causality). It examines competing theories for the observed bias in strict vs. sloppy readings in pairs of sentences like `John blamed himself and/because Bill did too' and argues that discourse relations and lexical items prove the strongest predictors of the bias.