Definite Noun Phrases Research Articles

Post Hoc Analysis Decisions Drive the Reported Reading Time Effects in Hackl, Koster-Hale & Varvoutis (2012)

Abstract Hackl, Koster-Hale & Varvoutis (2012; hereafter HKV) provide data that suggest that in a null context, antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) relative clause structures modifying a quantified object noun phrase (NP) are easier to process than those modifying a definite object NP. HKV argue that this pattern of results supports a quantifier-raising (QR) analysis of both ACD structures and quantified NPs in object position: under the account they advocate, both ACD resolution and quantified NPs in object position require movement of the object NP to a higher syntactic position. The processing advantage for quantified object NPs in ACD is hypothesized to derive from the fact that—at the point where ACD resolution must take place—the quantified NP has already undergone QR, whereas this is not the case for definite NPs. Here, we question these conclusions. In particular, our analyses of HKV’s reading time data reveal several unreported choice points, errors and concerns regarding multiple comparisons in the original HKV data analysis. Importantly, most other plausible ways to analyze these data that we describe here result in the crucial interaction being non-significant. Putting this observation together with the failure to observe the crucial interaction in Gibson & Levy (2016), we conclude that the experiments reported by HKV should not be viewed as providing evidence for the ACD quantifier-raising processing effect.

Adjetivos intensificadores no Português Brasileiro: propriedades, distribuição e reflexos morfológicos

RESUMO Neste artigo, analisamos as propriedades e a distribuição dos adjetivos intensificadores no português brasileiro, tendo em vista suas propriedades morfossintáticas, sintáticas e semânticas. Submetemos os dados a testes com o propósito de verificar seu comportamento em relação à ordem, definitude, e tipo de sentenças e sintagmas em que ocorrem. A partir disso, propomos algumas generalizações com relação à sua distribuição: (i) são exclusivamente prepostos, (ii) ocorrem em sintagmas definidos e indefinidos, (iii) ocorrem em sentenças exclamativas, e (iv) podem ser empregados em contextos de duplicação de determinante em sintagmas nominais indefinidos. No que concerne à categoria lexical que modificam, observamos a formação de dois subgrupos: aqueles que modificam apenas nomes (viz., baita, bruta, senhor(a), puta) e aqueles que modificam nomes e palavras de outra natureza categorial (viz., mega, hiper, super). Essas considerações nos fornecem um conjunto de informações sobre a controversa natureza morfológica de mega, hiper e super. Embora sejam tratados como prefixos, argumentamos que essa análise não é plausível. Em contrapartida, sugerimos que tais formas sejam consideradas adjetivos autônomos. Essa assunção, por sua vez, permite-nos explicar facilmente formações como supermercado, mega-feirão e hipercorreção, analisando-as como compostos de combinação categorial A-N, contrariamente ao que a literatura vem assumindo.

Bio-SCoRes: A Smorgasbord Architecture for Coreference Resolution in Biomedical Text.

Coreference resolution is one of the fundamental and challenging tasks in natural language processing. Resolving coreference successfully can have a significant positive effect on downstream natural language processing tasks, such as information extraction and question answering. The importance of coreference resolution for biomedical text analysis applications has increasingly been acknowledged. One of the difficulties in coreference resolution stems from the fact that distinct types of coreference (e.g., anaphora, appositive) are expressed with a variety of lexical and syntactic means (e.g., personal pronouns, definite noun phrases), and that resolution of each combination often requires a different approach. In the biomedical domain, it is common for coreference annotation and resolution efforts to focus on specific subcategories of coreference deemed important for the downstream task. In the current work, we aim to address some of these concerns regarding coreference resolution in biomedical text. We propose a general, modular framework underpinned by a smorgasbord architecture (Bio-SCoRes), which incorporates a variety of coreference types, their mentions and allows fine-grained specification of resolution strategies to resolve coreference of distinct coreference type-mention pairs. For development and evaluation, we used a corpus of structured drug labels annotated with fine-grained coreference information. In addition, we evaluated our approach on two other corpora (i2b2/VA discharge summaries and protein coreference dataset) to investigate its generality and ease of adaptation to other biomedical text types. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of our novel smorgasbord architecture. The specific pipelines based on the architecture perform successfully in linking coreferential mention pairs, while we find that recognition of full mention clusters is more challenging. The corpus of structured drug labels (SPL) as well as the components of Bio-SCoRes and some of the pipelines based on it are publicly available at https://github.com/kilicogluh/Bio-SCoRes. We believe that Bio-SCoRes can serve as a strong and extensible baseline system for coreference resolution of biomedical text.

The acquisition of different types of definite noun phrases in L2-English

Aims and research questions:This study aims to investigate second language (L2) learnability in article acquisition from a feature-based contrastive approach by examining L1-Korean speakers’ compre...

The Pronominal Copula in Arabic

The literature on the syntax of verbless predication in Arabic is rich, but little attention has been given to the ‘pronominal copula’, PRON. Its main characteristics are well-known: it only takes the form of third person independent pronouns; it is limited to equational sentences, in which the predicate is a definite noun phrase; and it must always occur between the subject and the predicate nominal. A standard view (e.g. Eid 1991, and more recently, Ouhalla 2013) has been to assume that PRON, like its verbal counterpart KN, realizes subject agreement in T. In this paper, I examine the syntax of PRON and review its characteristics in contrast with those of KN. I show that the complex distribution of PRON challenges the standard view and supports an alternative analysis. I propose that equational sentences are underlyingly more complex than predicational verbless sentences: they project an extra functional head F between T and the small clause structure, PredP, in which the non-verbal predicate and its subject are generated. PRON is in FP, while KN is in T. I argue that, because equational sentences involve two elements of the same category, i.e. DP, they are subject to the Distinctness Condition of Richards (2010). FP provides the Spell-Out domain boundary necessary to avoid a Distinctness violation. Finally, I suggest that FP is always headed by a pronominal element that functions as a linker (Philip 2012, Franco et al. 2015), a syntactic head which marks an existing grammatical relation, namely predication, between two DPs. More broadly, my account is in line with the view that the identity/predicational divide in copular sentences corresponds to a difference in syntactic structure.

Two kinds of definites in numeral classifier languages

Numeral classifier languages distinguish definite noun phrases licensed by uniqueness from those licensed by familiarity. Unique definites are expressed by bare nouns or null pronouns, while familiar definites are expressed by indexicals such as demonstrative descriptions or overt pronouns. This generalization parallels the observation by Schwarz (2009) that German distinguishes unique versus familiar or anaphoric definiteness in its article system. The difference between the two kinds of definites can be reduced to the presence of a semantic index in the case of familiar definites. As familiar definites occur in most E-type contexts, including donkey anaphora, and uniqueness definites are not possible in these contexts, these facts provide support to dynamic analyses of E-type anaphora and pose problems for uniqueness-based approaches, such as the theory of Elbourne (2013).

A superlative argument for a minimal theory of definiteness

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L';">This paper concerns the interpretation of the definite article with superlatives on a relative interpretation. Previous work has suggested that definite superlative noun phrases like </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L'; font-style: italic;">the fewest letters </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L';">in </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L'; font-style: italic;">Gloria received the fewest letters </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L';">(relative superlative DPs) are semantically indefinite. This paper argues that such DPs are </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L'; font-style: italic;">definite </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L';">(presupposing uniqueness) but not </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L'; font-style: italic;">determinate </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L';">(denoting an individual). We provide new evidence that they are not determinate, and undertake a critical review of the evidence that has previously been used to argue for their indefiniteness, arguing that it is consistent with the hypothesis that they are definite. We argue furthermore that a movement analysis of relative superlatives is not consistent with a treatment of the determiner as definite. We therefore offer an analysis of relative superlative DPs on which they are definite but indeterminate, and the superlative morpheme is interpreted </span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L'; font-style: italic;">in situ</span><span style="font-size: 11.000000pt; font-family: 'NimbusRomNo9L';">. </span></p></div></div></div>

ANAPHORIC ENCAPSULATION AND PRESUPPOSITION: PERSUASIVE AND STEREOTYPICAL USES OF A COHESIVE STRATEGY

This paper focuses on the presuppositional values of anaphoric encapsulation. We highlight that presupposition is a basic feature of argumentative and persuasive uses of this cohesive strategy, but may also apply to stereotypical instances, where evaluation does not coincide with persuasion. Finally, we analyse examples where a higher-order definite noun phrase does not presuppose the existence of a discourse referent.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------ENCAPSULAMENTO ANAFÓRICO E PRESSUPOSIÇÃO: USOS PERSUASIVOS E ESTEREOTIPADOS DE UMA ESTRATÉGIA DE COESÃOEste artigo analisa os valores pressuposicionais do encapsulamento anafórico. A pressuposição é uma característica básica dos usos argumentativos e persuasivos desta estratégia de coesão, mas também pode se aplicar a instâncias estereotipadas, onde a avaliação não coincide com a persuasão. Finalmente, analisamos exemplos onde sintagmas nominais definidos de ordem superior não pressupõem a existência de um referente do discurso.---Artigo em inglês.

The Definite Marker in Arabic: Morphological realization of the syntactic head D or a [DEF] feature

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt from the text:In Arabic, the definite marker can render a noun phrase (NP) definite and it appears as a proclitic on adjectives that modify a definite NP (a phenomenon known as definiteness agreement). Arabic also has a complex adjectival construction known as Construct State Adjective (CSA) that also exhibits the definiteness agreement property. Moreover, in cardinal number constructions in Standard Arabic, the definite marker appears as a proclitic on both the numeral and the enumerated noun (another case for definiteness agreement). This CSA construction and cardinal number constructions are interesting in that definiteness agreement is optional as opposed to the canonical cases of noun-adjective constructions (with post nominal adjectives) where definiteness agreement is obligatory. This paper argues that, given these facts about definiteness agreement, it is more plausible to treat the definite marker whish appears on nominal heads as the realization of the syntactic D head while the definite marker appearing on adjectival and nominal complements as a [DEF] feature added at PF.

MEG evidence that the LIFG effect of object extraction requires similarity-based interference

This study addresses a much-debated effect on a much-debated region: the increase of left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) activation associated with object-extracted relative clauses. This haemodynamic result is one of the most central and most cited findings in the cognitive neuroscience of syntax and it has robustly contributed to the popular association of Broca's region with syntax. Our study had two goals: (1) to characterise the timing of this classic effect with magnetoencephalography (MEG) and (2) to connect it to psycholinguistic research on the effects of similarity-based interference during sentence processing. Specifically, behavioural studies have shown that object relatives are primarily only costly when the two preverbal noun phrases are parallel in their surface syntax, for example, both consisting of a definite determiner and a noun (e.g. the reporter who the senator attacked), as opposed to employing, for example, a definite noun phrase and a proper name (the reporter who Bill attacked). This finding suggests that the difficulty of object extraction lies not within its syntax but rather in similarity-based interference affecting working memory processes. Although working memory is a prominent hypothesis for the LIFG engagement in object extraction, the haemodynamic literature has routinely employed stimuli involving parallel as opposed to non-parallel syntax. Using written sentences presented word-by-word, we tested whether an LIFG effect of object extraction is obtained with MEG, allowing us to characterise its timing, and whether it reduces or disappears if the two preverbal noun phrases are non-parallel in their surface syntax. Our results show an LIFG increase for object relatives at around 600 ms after verb onset, but only when the preverbal arguments are parallel. These findings are consistent with memory and competition-based explanations of the LIFG effect of object extraction and challenge accounts attributing it to displacement.

Weak definites as a form of definiteness: experimental investigations

Definite noun phrases typically refer to entities that are uniquely identifiable in the speaker and addressee’s common ground. However, some definite noun phrases (e.g. the hospital in Mary had to go the hospital and John did too) seem to violate uniqueness. We discuss a series of experiments that seek to understand some of the properties of this class of definites. We consider most carefully the hypothesis that these “weak definite” interpretations arise in implicitly “incorporated” constructions, attempting to provide a sketch of this hypothesis’ motivation and potential consequences. In our experiments we found that compared to regular definites, the weak definites need not refer uniquely, and readily trigger semantically enriched readings that compete effectively with normal inferences one might draw from a sentence. Perhaps the most surprising finding in the experiments is that nouns that could occur as weak definites, also seemed to retain some of these “weak” properties even when expressed as indefinites. We try and make sense of this within the “incorporation” framework.

Amount definites

Our project in the paper is twofold. First, we present an analysis of weak definites in general. Second, we present an analysis of the Semitic state inflection and its role in determining strong and weak definiteness, and introduce a novel type of weak definites which we call amount definites. Adopting the choice-function analysis of (in)definiteness, we analyse weak definiteness as the application of a type-shifted definite determiner to a relational noun. This application results in the reinterpretation of the relational noun as functional. When this function is in turn applied to the possessor, the definiteness of the result depends on the definiteness of the possessor. In Hebrew, weak definites often take the form of noun phrases headed by a noun marked with construct-state inflection; the paper discusses the interpretation of all construct-state nouns as relational. In colloquial Hebrew, the type-shifted definite determiner used in the formation of weak definites may take the form of a numeral (or other amount nouns) marked with emphatic-state inflection. We name weak definites headed by emphatic-state amount nouns amount definites, and compare the properties of amount definites to those of definite noun phrases where the amount noun is marked with construct-state inflection, which are strong definites.

Discourse Cohesion and Accessibility of Referents in Oral Narratives: A Comparison of L1 and L2 Acquisition of French and English

Thiss study aims at comparing L1 and L2 acquisition processes through an analysis of the linguistic means used to ensure discourse cohesion in the oral narratives of French and English four-, seven- and ten-year-old children and of adult learners of these two languages. We focused on the use of high accessibility markers (HAM) (zero anaphora, subject and object pronouns) and low accessibility markers (LAM) (definite noun phrases) by the different groups of learners to analyze the way they maintained and switched reference to the protagonists of the story. Our results highlight a tendency to underspecification among children, who use HAM in a higher proportion than native adults and produce ambiguous forms in context; and a tendency to overspecification among adult advanced and intermediate L2 learners, who favour LAM even where pronouns could be envisaged. This might be explained by the impact of cognitive factors as well as crosslinguistic influences on the productions of L1 and L2 learners.

Experimental investigations of weak definite and weak indefinite noun phrases

Definite noun phrases typically refer to entities that are uniquely identifiable in the speaker and addressee’s common ground. Some definite noun phrases (e.g. the hospital in Mary had to go the hospital and John did too) seem to violate this uniqueness constraint. We report six experiments that were motivated by the hypothesis that these “weak definite” interpretations arise in “incorporated” constructions. Experiments 1–3 compared nouns that seem to allow for a weak definite interpretation (e.g. hospital, bank, bus, radio) with those that do not (e.g. farm, concert, car, book). Experiments 1 and 2 used an instruction-following task and picture-judgment task, respectively, to demonstrate that a weak definite need not uniquely refer. In Experiment 3 participants imagined scenarios described by sentences such as The Federal Express driver had to go to the hospital/farm. Scenarios following weak definite noun phrases were more likely to include conventional activities associated with the object, whereas following regular nouns, participants were more likely to imagine scenarios that included typical activities associated with the subject; similar effects were observed with weak indefinites. Experiment 4 found that object-related activities were reduced when the same subject and object were used with a verb that does not license weak definite interpretations. In Experiment 5, a science fiction story introduced an artificial lexicon for novel concepts. Novel nouns that shared conceptual properties with English weak definite nouns were more likely to allow weak reference in a judgment task. Experiment 6 demonstrated that familiarity for definite articles and anti-familiarity for indefinite articles applies to the activity associated with the noun, consistent with predictions made by the incorporation analysis.

The use of lexical and referential cues in children's online interpretation of adjectives.

Recent research on moment-to-moment language comprehension has revealed striking differences between adults and preschool children. Adults rapidly use the referential principle to resolve syntactic ambiguity, assuming that modification is more likely when there are 2 possible referents for a definite noun phrase. Young children do not. We examine the scope of this phenomenon by exploring whether children use the referential principle to resolve another form of ambiguity. Scalar adjectives (big, small) are typically used to refer to an object when contrasting members of the same category are present in the scene (big and small coins). In the present experiment, 5-year-olds and adults heard instructions like "Point to the big (small) coin" while their eye-movements were measured to displays containing 1 or 2 coins. Both groups rapidly recruited the meaning of the adjective to distinguish between referents of different sizes. Critically, like adults, children were quicker to look to the correct item in trials containing 2 possible referents compared with 1. Nevertheless, children's sensitivity to the referential principle was substantially delayed compared to adults', suggesting possible differences in the recruitment of this top- down cue. The implications of current and previous findings are discussed with respect to the development of the architecture of language comprehension.

Classifiers and DP

Wu and Bodomo (2009) argue against claims made in Cheng and Sybesma 1999 . Gebhardt (2011) has contested their arguments related to the status of classifiers and the question whether all nouns in Chinese are mass. In this reply, we discuss some of the points Wu and Bodomo raise, arguing that (a) sortal classifiers are not lexical elements; (b) generic interpretation is not the same as kind interpretation; (c) demonstrative noun phrases do not have the same distribution and interpretation as definite noun phrases in Mandarin and Cantonese; and (d) the DP structure that Wu and Bodomo propose runs into serious problems with phrasal possessors. Finally, we discuss an alternative approach to the structure of the nominal domain in Chinese languages.

A bidirectional study on the acquisition of plural noun phrase interpretation in English and Spanish

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates how learners interpret definite plural noun phrases (e.g., the tigers) and bare (article-less) plural noun phrases (e.g., tigers) in their second language. Whereas Spanish allows definite plurals to have both generic and specific readings, English requires definite plurals to have specific, nongeneric readings. Generic readings in English are expressed with bare plurals, which are ungrammatical in Spanish in preverbal subject position. Two studies were conducted in order to investigate the role of first language transfer in this domain in both English → Spanish and Spanish → English directions. Study 1 used a meaning-focused task to probe learners’ interpretation of definite plural nour phrases, whereas Study 2 used a form-focused task to examine learners’ judgments of the acceptability of definite and bare plurals in generic versus specific contexts. First language transfer was attested in both directions, at lower proficiency levels, whereas more targetlike performance was attested at higher proficiency levels. Furthermore, learners were found to be more successful in learning about the (un)grammaticality of bare plurals in the target language than in assigning the target interpretation to definite versus bare plurals. This finding is shown to be consistent with other studies’ findings of plural noun phrase interpretation in monolingual and bilingual children.

The effect of animacy on the choice of referring expression

Theories of reference assume that the referent's salience in the discourse context affects the choice between pronouns and definite noun phrases or names. We examined whether and how the referent's inherent properties affect the choice of expressions by investigating animacy. Experiment 1 showed that pronouns were more frequent for animates than inanimates after discourse factors were controlled, and Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the referent's animacy affected pronoun use when the competitor's animacy was counterbalanced, suggesting that the referent's inherent salience has an effect. Furthermore, when the referent was animate, pronouns were less frequent when the competitor was also animate than when it was inanimate, whereas no effect of animacy congruence was found with inanimate referents, suggesting that when the competitor was salient and similar in meaning to the referent, it made the referent's representation less accessible.

Compreensão de descrições definidas e de anáforas associativas

In this study, we observe how children and adults build thematic continuity when reading expositive texts of scientific diffusion. We deal with the interference of both reading experience and definite noun phrases organization in achieving reading comprehension. It is our intention to answer questions such as: to what extent do definite noun phrases and associative anaphora interfere in reading, making information processing a more complex activity? Following Marcuschi e Koch, 1998; Marcuschi, 1998; Koch, 1998; Koch, 2000 e 2002; Apothéloz e Reichler-Béguelin, 1995; Mondada e Dubois, 1995, we consider that the activity of constructing reference is a discursive one and that the referents of anaphoric expressions are built by the cognitive-discursive action of subjects in communicative situations.

Einführung von Diskursreferenten im Bilderbuch

By analyzing 20 picture books that include both a textual narrative and pictures, three types of referent introduction were identified: introduction of referents by use of an indefinite noun phrase; introduction of referents by use of a definite noun phrase or a proper name; introduction of referents by use of a deictic construction. This shows that children are confronted with different strategies of referent introduction from early on. It is argued that the results of studies on the acquisition of the system of reference introduction could possibly be interpreted differently if one takes into account how the experience with literary texts influences children’s own narratives.