Antecedent (grammar)

About: Antecedent (grammar) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1392 publications have been published within this topic receiving 41824 citations.

Bias and Modality in Conditionals: Experimental Evidence and Theoretical Implications.

Abstract: The concept of bias is familiar to linguists primarily from the literature on questions. Following the work of Giannakidou and Mari (Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought: Modality, Mood, and Propositional Attitudes, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2021), we assume “nonveridical equilibrium” (implying that p and ¬p as equal possibilities) to be the default for epistemic modals, questions and conditionals. The equilibrium of conditionals, as that of questions, can be manipulated to produce bias (i.e., reduced or higher speaker commitment). In this paper, we focus on three kinds of modal elements in German that create bias in conditionals and questions: the adverb wirklich ‘really’, the modal verb sollte ‘should’, and conditional connectives such as falls ‘if/in case’. We conducted two experiments collecting participants’ inference about speaker commitment in different manipulations, Experiment 1 on sollte/wirklich in ob-questions and wenn-conditionals, and Experiment 2 on sollte/wirklich in wenn/falls/V1-conditionals. Our findings are that both ob-questions and falls-conditionals express reduced speaker commitment about the modified (antecedent) proposition in comparison to wenn-conditionals, which did not differ from V1-conditionals. In addition, sollte/wirklich in the antecedent of conditionals both create negative bias about the antecedent proposition. Our studies are among the first that deal with bias in conditionals (in comparison to questions) and contribute to furthering our understanding of bias.

The role of multiple antecedents in the time course of anaphor resolution.

Abstract: THE ROLE OF MULTIPLE ANTECEDENTS IN THE TIME COURSE OF ANAPHOR RESOLUTION FEBRUARY 1997 ROBERT A. MASON JR., B.S., UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH M.S., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST Directed by: Professor Jerome L. Myers In two experiments, participants read passages containing one or two candidates for an anaphoric reference that differed in their distance from the reference. In Experiment 1 eye movements were recorded. The presence of a second potential antecedent caused readers to look longer at the anaphoric reference and regress to a disambiguating region. A recognition probe experiment showed facilitation of the appropriate antecedent. More distant antecedent slowed reading times and resulted in slower recognition judgements.

Lexicon-Based Algorithms for the Automatic Analysis of Natural Language

Abstract: Let us examine the following discourse (D) from the point of view of elementary grammatical analysis: (D) Two men cleaned the offices, then, they waited for the janitor This discourse is composed of two members: two simple sentences connected by the conjunction 'then'. One of the elements needed for the interpretation of (D) lies in the nature of the antecedent of the pronoun 'they'. In principle, the pronoun 'they' refers to the noun phrase 'two men' of the first member, but it might indicate a group of persons different from these two men, if (D) is attached to an appropriate context or background. Whether the scene which constitutes the interpretation of (D) includes 3 persons (2 men and 1 janitor) or more depends entirely on the analysis of 'they'. Such questions of resolution of pronouns are trivial for a native speaker of English, but they become of paramount importance when one attempts a computer analysis of texts, and also when a reader who does not know well the language in which the discourse (D) is written tries to understand it. In both situations, in order to interpret (D), detailed dictionaries and grammars must be available which account for the relations occurring between the terms of (D). In this article, we are going to simulate the computation of the search for the antecedent(s) of 'they'. We will simplify this procedure by omitting its clerical aspects. In this way, we throw into relief the nature and the amount of information that must be stored in a lexicon-grammar, since, as we will see, we do not draw the usual line of demarcation between these two components of a language.

”Disagreeing” doubling det

Abstract: In this paper I discuss doubling with the neuter pronominal det ‘it’ in Swedish. Det may double common gender and/or plural noun phrases too, which gives rise to what looks like disagreement. The proposed analysis takes as its point of departure so-called pancake-sentences, which are sentences with a common gender and/or plural noun phrase subject, but where the predicative adjective agrees in the neuter, non-plural. The subject in this construction has a SUBSTANCE or an EVENT reading. There are reasons to believe that the subject of pancake-sentences is headed by a null, neuter classifier, devoid of the feature number. The absence of number explains the reading of the subject, as well as the agreement pattern. The analysis of pancake-sentences is carried over to one type of det-doubling: The antecedent of the doubling det is a neuter classifier, without number features, heading the doubled phrase. As a consequence, no disagreement is at hand in det-doubling of this type. In the other kind of apparent disagreeing det-doubling, the antecedent is not a linguistic entity, but a discourse element. (Less)