Lexical Principle Research Articles

The Lexicalization Patterns of Old Chinese Motion Verbs and the Manner/ Result Complementarity

Rappaport Hovav and Levin[1,2] propose the manner/result complementarity (MRC), which predicts the non-existence of verbs lexicalizing both manner and result at a time. Scholars [3, 4] argue against the MRC as a general lexical principle governing the lexicalization patterns of verbs by naming verbs which seem to encode both meaning components simultaneously. One type of counterexample verbs are based on the lexicalization properties of typologically different languages. Following Slobin [5], Shi and Wu [6] suggest that manner and result meaning components exhibit complementary distribution in satellite-framed languages but not verb-framed languages. Though Modern Chinese is generally classified as a satellite-framed language, Old Chinese is regarded as a verb-framed language and the lexicalization patterns of Old Chinese motion verbs are also subjected to controversy. Drawing evidence from motion verbs in Old Chinese, this study tries to answer whether the MRC constrains the possible lexicalization patterns of motion verbs in verb-framed languages. Detailed analysis indicates that though typologically different languages may use morphosyntactic devices specific to the language to differentiate verbs falling into different ontological categories, Old Chinese motion verbs conform to the MRC hypothesis.

Constructions with Lexical Integrity

Construction Grammar holds that unpredictable form-meaning combinations are not restricted in size. In particular, there may be phrases that have particular meanings that are not predictable from the words that they contain, but which are nonetheless not purely idiosyncratic. In addressing this observation, some construction grammarians have not only weakened the word/phrase distinction, but also denied the lexicon/grammar distinction. In this paper, we consider the word/phrase and lexicon/grammar distinction in light of Lexical-Functional Grammar and its Lexical Integrity Principle. We show that it is not necessary to remove the word/phrase distinction or the lexicon/grammar distinction to capture constructional effects, although we agree that there are important generalizations involving constructions of all sizes that must be captured at both syntactic and semantic levels. We use LFG’s templates, bundles of grammatical descriptions, to factor out grammatical information in such a way that it can be invoked either by words or by construction-specific phrase structure rules. Phrase structure rules that invoke specific templates are thus the equivalent of phrasal constructions in our approach, but Lexical Integrity and the separation of word and phrase are preserved. Constructional effects are captured by systematically allowing words and phrases to contribute comparable information to LFG’s level of functional structure; this is just a generalization of LFG’s usual assumption that “morphology competes with syntax” (Bresnan, 2001).

The prevalence and the weakness of an early name mapping preference.

An empirical puzzle regarding toddlers' fast mapping motivated the current investigation. Whereas children between 1;10 and 2;1 have shown only a modest rate of mapping novel nouns onto unfamiliar rather than familiar objects, a very high rate has been observed in those between 1;4 and 1;8 (Mervis & Bertrand, 1991). Study 1 examined whether young two-year-olds (N = 40, mean age = 2;1) might map at a higher rate when tested with procedures unique to Mervis & Bertrand's assessment--strong corrective feedback rather than mild positive non-contingent feedback; large sets of test objects rather than pairs; presentation of easier tests first. Only the first variable affected performance in a manner that could solve the puzzle. Unfamiliar kinds were selected at a much higher rate under corrective (0.86) than non-contingent (0.57) feedback. Although nearly every child in the non-contingent group chose correctly on the first trial, many failed to do so thereafter. In Study 2, rather than presenting a test word to the children (N = 16, mean age = 2;2), the experimenter merely asked for 'the one I want'. Unfamiliar kinds were selected much less often than in Study 1, suggesting that at least one lexical principle proposed in the literature underlies the noun mapping preference. Changes over trials in the two studies indicated that the noun mapping preference is quite prevalent, but unless initial choices are strongly reinforced, an increase in the salience of familiar kinds after the first trial lures some children into error. Consistent with this analysis, toddlers in Study 3 (N = 24, mean age = 2:1) who received non-contingent strong acceptance for their noun mapping decisions, selected unfamiliar kinds more often than those who had received non-contingent mild acceptance in Study 1.

Rawls, The Lexical Difference Principle and Equality

First we have to assume that an appropriate framework of institutions is in place. That constraint alone sets Rawls apart from those (mostly, it must be said, economists) who regard the Pareto principle as self-evident. Next, the least well-off must benefit if a change is to be regarded as an improvement. In contrast, a Paretian would say that a change from which someone other than the worst-off gained and nobody lost is an improvement. Rawls describes the difference principle as 'a strongly egalitarian conception', and emphasizes the point by describing the case of a two-person society in which both are equal: 'No matter how much either person's situation is improved, there is no gain from the standpoint of the difference principle unless the other gains also' (Theory of ustice, p. 76). Hence any gain from which some benefit and none lose is not a change for the better, according to the difference principle, unless the worstoff are among those who benefit; a change which does not benefit them is not an improvement, even though it fulfils the criterion of a Pareto gain.

Young Children's Disambiguation of Object Name Reference

Children show a disambiguation effect--a tendency to select unfamiliar rather than familiar things as the referents of new names. In previous studies, this effect has been reversed in young 2-year-olds, but not older children, by preexposing the unfamiliar objects, suggesting that attraction to novelty controls 2-years-olds' choices of referents for new names, but a mutual exclusivity and/or lexical gap-filling principle determines preschoolers' selections. Both the disambiguation effect and its reversal by preexposure were replicated in the present study; however, 24-month-olds' rate of selecting unfamiliar over familiar kinds was less when they were simply asked to choose between the items than when they were asked to identify the referents of unfamiliar names. Thus, some young children may have both an attraction to novel tokens and a tendency to honor an abstract lexical principle. Referent selections were also affected by object typicality and word similarity. Correlations between the tendency to acknowledge a new name's unfamiliarity and to treat it like a similar-sounding familiar name suggested that youngsters' phonological matching skills affect their interpretation of new names. Also, 4-year-olds who most often mapped distinctive-sounding new names to unfamiliar kinds tended to admit their unfamiliarity with these names most frequently, suggesting that children's increasing awareness of their own knowledge begins to affect their lexical processing during the preschool years.