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Carol Lynn Moder - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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form discourse function Grammatical Construction
Social Science Research Network, 2008Co-Authors: Carol Lynn ModerAbstract:In cognitive linguistics, the use and interpretation of metaphorical and non-metaphorical expressions using like have to date focused little attention on the relation of a specific form to discourse function (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999). Fauconnier & Turner (2002) while not specifically discussing similes, do suggest that Grammatical variations in expressions function as cues to the listener to construct a blend. Israel, Harding & Tobin (2004) also highlight the importance of Grammatical form, examining a wide range of simile expressions extracted from context, all of which they assume to express the notion of comparison. However, recent discourse-based corpus studies suggest that more productive analyses of these expressions should be grounded in the soecific ways that form cues the discourse relations between speakers and hearers (Cameron and Deignan 2003; Moder 2008). They further suggest that a given lexical item might cue a variety of interpretations.The purpose of this study is to examine metaphorical and non-metaphorical expressions using like in their naturally-occurring discourse contexts within the framework of Grammatical Construction theory (Goldberg, 1995, 2006; Tomasello, 2003; Croft 2001). The study considers the ways in which non-metaphorical Constructions using like inform the use and interpretation of similes with like. The corpus for the study was spoken American English from National Public Radio news programs (1,000,000 words) and a related comparison corpus of written American English of 5 million words from The New York Times. The corpus was first examined for instances of all expressions using like and then context, frequency, and collocational analyses were used to consider the extent to which expressions were being lexicalized with a particular meaning or grammaticized in a particular Construction. The study focused on expressions in which like elaborated a noun phrase.Two Constructions with distinctive discourse functions were identified, one that functioned comparatively in the discourse and took the form (And or But) like NP, NP (And like the ex-soldiers, Aristide militants have their weapons stashed; But like Gore, Bush has prepared for months...) and another that functioned to instantiate members of a category and took the form NP like NP (Cities like Los Angeles and Miami have full-fledged school police departments; Real-world problems , like gangs guns and drugs, as well as high-profile cases like the Columbine shooting.). A third Construction It's like a NP (It's like a jungle, It's like a fortune teller) generally introduced an extended mapping. This latter type was the one most likely to cue a metaphorical mapping.The results confirm that like may well function as a cue to the listener to construct a blend, but that the specific nature of the mapping it cues derives both from its situation in the discourse and the Construction in which it participates. The study confirms the critical importance of form in cueing particular discourse-based meanings.
Michael Tomasello - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the distributed learning effect for children s acquisition of an abstract Grammatical Construction
Cognitive Development, 2006Co-Authors: Ben Ambridge, Anna L Theakston, Elena Lieven, Michael TomaselloAbstract:Abstract In many cognitive domains, learning is more effective when exemplars are distributed over a number of sessions than when they are all presented within one session. The present study investigated this distributed learning effect with respect to English-speaking children's acquisition of a complex Grammatical Construction. Forty-eight children aged 3;6–5;10 (Experiment 1) and 72 children aged 4;0–5;0 (Experiment 2) were given 10 exposures to the Construction all in one session (massed), or on a schedule of two trials per day for 5 days (distributed-pairs), or one trial per day for 10 days (distributed). Children in both the distributed-pairs and distributed conditions learnt the Construction better than children in the massed condition, as evidenced by productive use of this Construction with a verb that had not been presented during training. Methodological and theoretical implications of this finding are discussed, with particular reference to single-process accounts of language acquisition.
Reinhold Kliegl - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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middle ratings rise regardless of Grammatical Construction testing syntactic variability in a repeated exposure paradigm
PLOS ONE, 2021Co-Authors: J M M Brown, Gisbert Fanselow, Rebecca Hall, Reinhold KlieglAbstract:People perceive sentences more favourably after hearing or reading them many times. A prominent approach in linguistic theory argues that these types of exposure effects (satiation effects) show direct evidence of a generative approach to linguistic knowledge: only some sentences improve under repeated exposure, and which sentences do improve can be predicted by a model of linguistic competence that yields natural syntactic classes. However, replications of the original findings have been inconsistent, and it remains unclear whether satiation effects can be reliably induced in an experimental setting at all. Here we report four findings regarding satiation effects in wh-questions across German and English. First, the effects pertain to zone of well-formedness rather than syntactic class: all intermediate ratings, including calibrated fillers, increase at the beginning of the experimental session regardless of syntactic Construction. Second, though there is satiation, ratings asymptote below maximum acceptability. Third, these effects are consistent across judgments of superiority effects in English and German. Fourth, wh-questions appear to show similar profiles in English and German, despite these languages being traditionally considered to differ strongly in whether they show effects on movement: violations of the superiority condition can be modulated to a similar degree in both languages by manipulating subject-object initiality and animacy congruency of the wh-phrase. We improve on classic satiation methods by distinguishing between two crucial tests, namely whether exposure selectively targets certain Grammatical Constructions or whether there is a general repeated exposure effect. We conclude that exposure effects can be reliably induced in rating experiments but exposure does not appear to selectively target certain Grammatical Constructions. Instead, they appear to be a phenomenon of intermediate gradient judgments.
Fenna H Poletiek - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the effect of context dependent information and sentence Constructions on perceived humanness of an agent in a turing test
Knowledge Based Systems, 2019Co-Authors: Roy De Kleijn, Marjolein Wijnen, Fenna H PoletiekAbstract:Abstract In a Turing test, a judge decides whether their conversation partner is either a machine or human. What cues does the judge use to determine this? In particular, are presumably unique features of human language actually perceived as humanlike? Participants rated the humanness of a set of sentences that were manipulated for Grammatical Construction: linear right-branching or hierarchical center-embedded and their plausibility with regard to world knowledge. We found that center-embedded sentences are perceived as less humanlike than right-branching sentences and more plausible sentences are regarded as more humanlike. However, the effect of plausibility of the sentence on perceived humanness is smaller for center-embedded sentences than for right-branching sentences. Participants also rated a conversation with either correct or incorrect use of the context by the agent. No effect of context use was found. Also, participants rated a full transcript of either a real human or a real chatbot, and we found that chatbots were reliably perceived as less humanlike than real humans, in line with our expectation. We did, however, find individual differences between chatbots and humans.
Charles J Fillmore - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Grammatical Constructions and linguistic generalizations the what s x doing y Construction
Language, 1999Co-Authors: Paul Kay, Charles J FillmoreAbstract:Our goal is to present, by means of the detailed analysis of a single Grammatical problem, some of the principal commitments and mechanisms of a Grammatical theory that assigns a central role to the notion of Grammatical Construction . To adopt a Constructional approach is to undertake a commitment in principle to account for the entirety of each language. This means that the relatively general patterns of the language, such as the one licensing the ordering of a finite auxiliary verb before its subject in English, often known as SAI, and the highly idiomatic patterns, like kick the bucket , stand on an equal footing as data for which the grammar must account. An explicit grammar that covers the full range of Constructions must represent all Constructions, of whatever degree of generality or idiomaticity, in a common notation and must provide an explicit account of how each sentence of a language is licensed by a subset of the leaves of the inheritance hierarchy of Constructions which constitutes the grammar of that language. Language-internal generalizations are captured by inheritance relations among Constructions. Cross-language generalizations are captured by the architecture of the representation system and by the sharing of abstract Constructions across languages. The particular Grammatical phenomenon used here to introduce Construction grammar (CG) is the Construction that licenses the surprising syntactic and semantic features of a sentence like What are they doing resuscitating Constructions?
