Perfect Sentences Research Articles

Grammatical verb aspect and event roles in sentence processing.

Two experiments examine how grammatical verb aspect constrains our understanding of events. According to linguistic theory, an event described in the perfect aspect (John had opened the bottle) should evoke a mental representation of a finished event with focus on the resulting object, whereas an event described in the imperfective aspect (John was opening the bottle) should evoke a representation of the event as ongoing, including all stages of the event, and focusing all entities relevant to the ongoing action (instruments, objects, agents, locations, etc.). To test this idea, participants saw rebus sentences in the perfect and imperfective aspect, presented one word at a time, self-paced. In each sentence, the instrument and the recipient of the action were replaced by pictures (John was using/had used a *corkscrew* to open the *bottle* at the restaurant). Time to process the two images as well as speed and accuracy on sensibility judgments were measured. Although experimental sentences always made sense, half of the object and instrument pictures did not match the temporal constraints of the verb. For instance, in perfect sentences aspect-congruent trials presented an image of the corkscrew closed (no longer in-use) and the wine bottle fully open. The aspect-incongruent yet still sensible versions either replaced the corkscrew with an in-use corkscrew (open, in-hand) or the bottle image with a half-opened bottle. In this case, the participant would still respond “yes”, but with longer expected response times. A three-way interaction among Verb Aspect, Sentence Role, and Temporal Match on image processing times showed that participants were faster to process images that matched rather than mismatched the aspect of the verb, especially for resulting objects in perfect sentences. A second experiment replicated and extended the results to confirm that this was not due to the placement of the object in the sentence. These two experiments extend previous research, showing how verb aspect drives not only the temporal structure of event representation, but also the focus on specific roles of the event. More generally, the findings of visual match during online sentence-picture processing are consistent with theories of perceptual simulation.

Spell checker implementation to analyze the narrative essay of sixth-grade elementary school students in Indonesia

Learning Bahasa Indonesia correctly in terms of writing and reading is needed by students to understand well the language learned in school. Some problems arise when elementary school students still need guidance in writing Indonesian sentences in narratives, that are still lacking the standard or misspelling. Teachers usually read essays from students but it takes a lot for the teacher to learn. This research emerged with the aim of assisting teachers and students in correcting the spelling of the essay that was written so that it would be a perfect and perfect sentence. Applications built using internet technology so students can access the system anywhere. The results show that 87% of students experience spelling errors in writing narrative essay because they are inaccurate to what they write, so the application will provide automatic correction and already implemented in several schools at Malang.

Language for Winning Hearts and Minds: Verb Aspect in U.S. Presidential Campaign Speeches for Engaging Emotion.

How does language influence the emotions and actions of large audiences? Functionally, emotions help address environmental uncertainty by constraining the body to support adaptive responses and social coordination. We propose emotions provide a similar function in language processing by constraining the mental simulation of language content to facilitate comprehension, and to foster alignment of mental states in message recipients. Consequently, we predicted that emotion-inducing language should be found in speeches specifically designed to create audience alignment – stump speeches of United States presidential candidates. We focused on phrases in the past imperfective verb aspect (“a bad economy was burdening us”) that leave a mental simulation of the language content open-ended, and thus unconstrained, relative to past perfective sentences (“we were burdened by a bad economy”). As predicted, imperfective phrases appeared more frequently in stump versus comparison speeches, relative to perfective phrases. In a subsequent experiment, participants rated phrases from presidential speeches as more emotionally intense when written in the imperfective aspect compared to the same phrases written in the perfective aspect, particularly for sentences perceived as negative in valence. These findings are consistent with the notion that emotions have a role in constraining the comprehension of language, a role that may be used in communication with large audiences.

Explaining the link between agentivity and non-culminating causation

This paper offers an account for why, cross-linguistically, denying the whole change of state encoded by causative verbs is easier with agent than with causer subjects. It does so by extending Varasdi's theory of the progressive to non-culminating reading sof causative verbs, not only in progressive but also in perfective sentences. It additionally sustains two claims about the difference between agentive and nonagentive ongoing causation events: only the former (a) can in principle start before their potential effects start and (b) are systematically `indicative' of these potential effects.

Language choices in L2 English sentence production: Why speakers could have used modal perfect but didn’t

Abstract This study compared production of modal perfect sentences by native English speakers and advanced non-native English speakers from Asian L1 backgrounds in discourse and discourse-free contexts. In experiment 1, native and non-native speakers reconstructed modal perfect sentences from sentential anagrams under time pressure. Both speaker groups were faster to construct modal perfect sentences than closely matched control sentences. In experiment 2, native and non-native speakers read and responded orally to stories designed to elicit modal perfect. The results revealed that non-native speakers produced significantly fewer modal perfect sentences than native speakers. Taken together, the findings suggest that although non-native speakers from Asian L1 backgrounds have the syntactic capability to produce modal perfect under constrained conditions in a sentential anagram task, they are less likely than native speakers to produce such constructions in particular discourse contexts, perhaps as a result of differences in cultural background. Implications for English language instruction are discussed.

The English Resultative and Experiential Perfects: A Reply to Mittwoch (2008)

Yoon, YoungEun. 2011. The English Resultative and Experiential Perfects: A Reply to Mittwoch (2008). Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-1, 133-155. Mittwoch (2008) analyzes the meanings and distributional restrictions of the English Resultative and Experiential perfects. She proposes that the Resultative perfect derives the so-called and inferences, and that the former is part of the truth conditional meaning of the sentence while the latter is a special type of conventional implicature. She also states that the event denoted by the Experiential perfect should be repeatable, whereas the one by the Resultative perfect sentence is singular and close to the evaluation time, and it has the result state inference. However, she proposes that these generalizations could be violated depending on the context, and especially the lack of the result state inference of a perfect is led to its Experiential use regardless of its event singularity. Given these, this paper points out some problems of Mittwoch's analysis including her distinctions between Weak and Strong Resultatives, and between Resultatives and Experientials. Furthermore, it will be argued that Resultatives and Experientials are distinguished by explicature, not by the existence of the result state inference, and that the result state inference is a conversational implicature, not a conventional implicature. (Ewha Womans University)

Grammatical aspect and mental simulation

When processing sentences about perceptible scenes and performable actions, language understanders activate perceptual and motor systems to perform mental simulations of those events. But little is known about exactly what linguistic elements activate modality-specific systems during language processing. While it is known that content words, like nouns and verbs, influence the content of a mental simulation, the role of grammar is less well understood. We investigate the role of grammatical markers in mental simulation through two experiments in which we manipulate the meanings of sentences by modifying the grammatical aspect they use. Using the Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE) methodology [Glenberg, A., Kaschak, M. (2002). Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9, 558–565], we show that progressive sentences about hand motion facilitate manual action in the same direction, while perfect sentences that are identical in every way except their aspect do not. The broader implication of this finding for language processing is that while content words tell understanders what to mentally simulate and what brain regions to use in performing these simulations, grammatical constructions such as aspect modulate how those simulations are performed.

Aspectual asymmetries in the mental representation of events: Role of lexical and grammatical aspect

Temporal information is important in the construction of situation models, and many languages make use of perfective and imperfective aspect markers to distinguish between completed situations (e.g., He made a cake) and ongoing situations (e.g., He is making a cake). Previous studies in which the effect of grammatical aspect has been examined have shown that perfective sentences are often processed more quickly than imperfective ones (e.g., Chan, Yap, Shirai, & Matthews, 2004; Madden & Zwaan, 2003; Yap et al., 2004; Yap et al., 2006). However, these studies used only accomplishment verbs (i.e., verbs with an inherent endpoint, such as bake a cake). The present study on the processing of Cantonese includes activity verbs (i.e., durative verbs with no inherent endpoint, such as play the piano), and the results indicate a strong interaction between lexical aspect (i.e., verb type) and grammatical aspect. That is, perfective sentences were processed more quickly with accomplishment verbs, consistent with previous findings, but imperfective sentences were processed more quickly with activity verbs. We suggest that these different aspectual asymmetries emerge as a result of the inherent associations between accomplishment verbs and the bounded features of perfective aspect and between activity verbs and the unbounded features of imperfective aspect. The sentence stimuli from this study may be downloaded from mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Short article: Verb aspect and perceptual simulations

Two experiments investigate the influence of verb aspect on situation representations. The results demonstrate that comprehenders use verb aspect as a cue to regulate the activation of ongoing simulations of situations over time. Experiment 1 measured word-by-word reading as well as sensibility judgements on sentences in which a target object word had been replaced by a picture. For the past imperfective sentences, participants were faster to process the picture, the two words following the picture, and the sensibility judgements when objects were pictured in use rather than not in use. However, this in-use facilitation was limited to processing of the picture for the past perfect sentences. Experiment 2 served as a control to ensure that the use effect and its interaction with verb aspect were a result of contextual manipulations rather than surface features of the pictures themselves. The results are interpreted within the framework of perceptual simulations during language comprehension.

Morphological focus marking in Gùrùntùm (West Chadic)

The paper presents an in-depth study of focus marking in Gùrùntùm, a West Chadic language spoken in Bauchi State in Nigeria. Focus in Gùrùntùm is marked morphologically by means of a focus marker a, which typically precedes the focused constituent. Even though the morphological focus-marking system of Gùrùntùm allows for a lot of fine-grained distinctions in information structure (IS), the language is not entirely free of focus ambiguities that are the result of conflicting IS- and syntactic requirements governing the placement of focus markers. We show that morphological focus marking with a applies across different types of focus, such as new-information, contrastive, selective and corrective focus, and that a does not have a second function as a perfective marker, as is assumed in the literature. In contrast, we argue that sentence-final occurrences of a in perfective sentences are markers of sentential focus and have additional functions at the level of discourse structure.

Peculiar Perfection: Peter Abelard on Propositional Attitudes

In the course of the debates on Priscian's notion of the perfect sentence, the philosopher Peter Abelard developed a theory that closely resembles modern accounts of propositional attitudes and that goes far beyond the established Aristotelian conceptions of the sentence. According to Abelard, the perfection of a sentence does not depend on the content that it expresses, but on the fact that the content is stated along with the propositional attitude towards the content. This paper tries to provide an analysis and a consistent interpretation of Abelard's arguments within the framework of the mediaeval models of language and mind.

On the grammaticalization of the Estonian perfective particles

This article presents two grammaticalization types of separable perfective particles in Estonian. The bounding particle (BP) use of the semantically most bleached Estonian separable verbal particle ära is demonstrated to display a distinct status in the grammaticalization of aspect. The special character of the BP is illustrated by contrasting the BP ära, on the one hand, with the well-established use of the particle with the same form (ära) and, on the other hand, several other perfective particles, which are referred to here as instances of completive particles (CP). The study of differences brings out the following novel facts about the BP. The particle occurs only in context-dependent, agentive sentences that typically describe the achievement of planned or foreseen endpoints of events. The perfective sentences with the BP contain primarily activity verbs; however, verbs in such sentences can belong to all aspectual classes, and the combinations are transparent. The occurrence of an argument that would serve as a “measure” for the event is thereby optional. The evidence that the BP and verb combinations do not allow for the derivation of adjectives (participles) also demonstrates the difference between the principles of combining a verb and a BP as opposed to a CP.

A Modal Account of the English Present Perfect Puzzle

No abstract.

How does verb aspect constrain event representations?

We investigated the relative contribution of perfective and imperfective aspectual cues on situation models. In Experiment 1, participants were more likely to choose pictures showing completed events than pictures showing ongoing events when they had read perfective sentences, but chose either picture after reading imperfective sentences. In Experiment 2, only one picture was presented and participants were faster to respond to completed pictures than to ongoing pictures when they had read perfective sentences, but showed no latency differences after reading the imperfective sentences. In Experiment 3, participants were faster to read perfective sentences after having seen completed pictures rather than intermediate pictures, but there was no difference for imperfective sentences. The consistent pattern of results demonstrates that readers construct mental representations of completed events when the perfective aspect is used to describe an event. The lack of effect on imperfective sentences and pictures suggests that each reader represents an in-progress event at varying stages of completion.

On the resultative character of present perfect sentences

One of the features of meaning commonly attributed to present perfect is that of indicating results ( I have had a bath. Result: I am clean, I have caught a cold. Result: I have a cold). This article is aimed at determining the status of the resultative propositions associated with present perfect sentences: are they the externalization of the semantics of the perfect or pragmatic effects? It is shown that the results arising from processing perfect sentences may be of different kinds, which calls for a partly semantic, partly pragmatic explanation of ‘current relevance’.

Salome and the Wildean Art of Symbolist Theatre

"My first meeting with Oscar Wilde was an astonishment," Yeats recalled in his autobiography; "I never before heard a man talking with perfect sentences, as if he had written them all over night with labour and yet all spontaneous." Readers of Wilde's writings, and audiences of his plays, have often had this same paradoxical impression of evident craft and spontaneity. For generations, those same readers and audiences have consistently associated the man with the writings and the writings with the man. Walter Pater described this viva-voce quality in his review of The Picture of Dorian Gray, where he praised Wilde for writing like the voice of a man speaking. "There is always something of an excellent talker" about his writing, Pater said, "and, in his hands, as happens so rarely with those who practise it, the form of dialogue is justified by its being really alive.”

Transportability, scope ambiguity of adverbials and the Generalized Binding theory

There has been much discussion, mainly by Montague grammarians, of the fact that ‘transportation’ of adverbials affects use or semantic interpretation of perfect sentences. Consider, for example, the following perfect sentences: (1) with a durational PP in sentence-final position; (2) with a durational PP in sentence-initial position; and (3) with a durationalwh-phrase in sentence-initial position:(1) John has been in Tucson for two years.(2) For two years, John has been in Tucson.(3) How long has John been in Tucson?(4) (a) John has been in Tucson for two years up to now.(b) John was in Tucson for two years in the past.

Infinitive Perfect and Backward Causation

The present paper represents an attempt to explain the semantically deviant nature of causative constructions with present perfect effect sentences. As far as I known, such constructions have not been commented upon in the literature on causativity. I show that any counterfactual analysis of the traditional sort will bring them out as synthetic sentences, provided they are syntactically well-formed. On the other hand, if the notion os counterfactural dependence is re-interpreted along the lines of branching possible worlds, they can be shown to be systematically contradictory. I discuss the various revisions of the truth conditions for tensed formulae and of the general semantic framework which are necessary to accomplish this.

Contextual Factors in the Use of the Present Perfect

The concept of current relevance has been referred to in many discussions of the usage of the present perfect; however it is a difficult idea to teach because it deals with factors outside the present perfect sentence in isolation. In this study the inadequacies of rules governing the present perfect in isolated sentences are first discussed and then two contextual factors which are thought to be connected with current relevance and the use of the present perfect are described. The factors, the existence of a situation to which a present perfect sentence can be related, and the expression of this situation in the present tense are experimentally shown to influence the use of the present perfect to a significant degree.

Camus and the Parable of the Perfect Sentence

(1970). Camus and the Parable of the Perfect Sentence. Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures: Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 254-261.