Semantic Contribution Research Articles

Cross-categorial modification of properties in Hebrew and English

Work in the past decade has greatly improved our understanding of the meaning of gradable predicates and degree modification. The discussion of these expressions has charted the way to an examination of additional types of modifiers that do not operate on degrees but rather on context candidates. In this study, I analyze the Hebrew modifier mamaš and its English equivalent really as modifiers of properties of individuals, situations, or propositions. The flexible semantics accounts for these modifiers’ wide distribution and types of semantic contribution.

DegP scope revisited

The semantic literature takes degree operators like the comparative, but also measure phrases, the equative, the superlative and so on, to be quantifiers over degrees. This is well motivated by their semantic contribution, but leads one to expect far more scope interaction than is actually observed. This paper proposes an alternative-semantic analysis of certain degree constructions, in particular constructions with little and other negative antonyms. Restrictions on scope can then be explained as intervention effects.

Body-part-specific Representations of Semantic Noun Categories

Word meaning processing in the brain involves ventrolateral temporal cortex, but a semantic contribution of the dorsal stream, especially frontocentral sensorimotor areas, has been controversial. We here examine brain activation during passive reading of object-related nouns from different semantic categories, notably animal, food, and tool words, matched for a range of psycholinguistic features. Results show ventral stream activation in temporal cortex along with category-specific activation patterns in both ventral and dorsal streams, including sensorimotor systems and adjacent pFC. Precentral activation reflected action-related semantic features of the word categories. Cortical regions implicated in mouth and face movements were sparked by food words, and hand area activation was seen for tool words, consistent with the actions implicated by the objects the words are used to speak about. Furthermore, tool words specifically activated the right cerebellum, and food words activated the left orbito-frontal and fusiform areas. We discuss our results in the context of category-specific semantic deficits in the processing of words and concepts, along with previous neuroimaging research, and conclude that specific dorsal and ventral areas in frontocentral and temporal cortex index visual and affective-emotional semantic attributes of object-related nouns and action-related affordances of their referent objects.

Modified Numerals as Post-Suppositions

The paper provides a compositional account of cumulative readings with non-increasing modified numerals (aka van Benthem's puzzle), for example, Exactly 3 boys saw exactly 5 movies. The main proposal is that modified numerals make two kinds of semantic contributions. Their asserted/at-issue contribution is a maximization operator that introduces the maximal set of entities that satisfies their restrictor and nuclear scope. The second contribution is a post-supposition, that is, a cardinality constraint that needs to be satisfied relative to the context that results after the at-issue meaning is evaluated. Thus, the interpretation process ends up giving a kind of pseudo wide scope to the cardinality post-suppositions contributed by modified numerals.

Context, Compositionality and Amity: A Response to Rett

In an insightful and provocative paper, Jessica Rett (2006) claims that attempts to locate the (non-indexical, non-demonstrative) semantic contributions of context in syntax run into problems respecting compositionality. This is an especially biting problem for hidden indexical theorists such as Stanley (2000, 2002) who deploy hidden variables to provide a compositional theory of semantic interpretation. Fortunately for the hidden indexical theorists, her attack fails, albeit in interesting and subtle ways.The following paper is divided into four sections. Section I presents a skeletal version of Rett's argument. Those already familiar with Rett (2006) can skip ahead without shame. Section II offers a defense to the hidden indexical theorists.

Paced reading in semantic dementia: Word knowledge contributes to phoneme binding in rapid speech production

Patients with semantic dementia (SD) show deficits in phoneme binding in immediate serial recall: when attempting to reproduce a sequence of words that they no longer fully understand, they show frequent migrations of phonemes between items (e.g., cap, frog recalled as “frap, cog”). This suggests that verbal short-term memory emerges directly from interactions between semantic and phonological systems, allowing semantic knowledge to make a critical contribution to the stability of phonological sequences. According to this standpoint, SD patients should show phoneme binding deficits in additional language tasks beyond standard assessments of verbal short-term memory: for example, these errors should emerge in paced reading, which also requires the rapid production of semantically degraded words in order. To test this hypothesis, we examined a cyclical paced reading task in three SD patients for the first time. Every patient showed deficits in phoneme binding: they were more vulnerable than a set of age-matched controls to phoneme competition effects following the repetition of a small set of words across several cycles. They also showed substantially elevated numbers of phoneme migration, substitution and omission errors, despite being able to read the individual words almost without error. These findings confirm that the semantic contribution to phoneme binding is disrupted in SD patients across tasks. In line with the view that verbal short-term memory emerges from interactions between basic phonological and semantic components, these effects occur both within classic short-term memory paradigms, such as immediate serial recall, and tasks without explicit memory demands, such as paced reading.

Does richness lose its luster? Effects of extensive practice on semantic richness in visual word recognition

Previous studies have reported facilitatory effects of semantic richness on word recognition (e.g., Yap et al., 2012). These effects suggest that word meaning is an important contributor to lexical decision task (LDT) performance, but what are the effects of repeated LDT practice on these semantic contributions? The current study utilized data from the British Lexicon Project (BLP) in which 78 participants made lexical decision judgments for 28,730 words over 16 h. We used linear mixed effects to detect practice-driven changes in the explanatory variance accounted for by a set of lexical predictors that included numerous indices of relative semantic richness, including imageability, the number of senses and average radius of co-occurrence (ARC). Results showed that practice was associated with decreasing effects of predictors such as word frequency and imageability. In contrast, ARC effects were only slightly diminished with repeated practice, and effects of the number of senses and the age of acquisition were unaffected by practice. We interpret our results within a framework in which variables may dynamically influence lexical processing and the post-lexical decision making mechanisms that also contribute to LDT performance.

Measuring and Comparing Individuals and Events

This squib investigates parallels between nominal and verbal comparatives. Building on key insights of Hackl (2000) and Bale & Barner (2009), we show that more behaves uniformly when it combines with nominal and verbal predicates: (i) it cannot combine with singular count NPs or perfective telic VPs; (ii) grammatical properties of the predicates determine the scale of comparison—plural marked NPs and habitual VPs are compared on a scale of cardinality, whereas mass NPs and perfective (atelic) VPs are (often) compared along non-cardinal, though monotonic, scales. Taken together, our findings confirm and strengthen parallels that have independently been drawn between the nominal and verbal domains. In addition, our discussion and data, drawn from English, Spanish, and Bulgarian, suggest that the semantic contribution of more can be given a uniform analysis.

CRITICAL NOTICE OF LANGUAGE TURNED ON ITSELF, BY HERMAN CAPPELEN AND ERNIE LEPORE

To my knowledge, this is the first book-length philosophical treatment of quotation. It not only does a great job bringing the reader to the forefront of current discussions of the topic, but on the way makes many bold and well-argued claims on a variety of specific questions, and advances substantial theories about the semantic contribution of quotation marks, in their various kinds of occurrence, and about the nature of items quoted. In what follows, I will summarize the book, then discuss some of the authors’ claims, dwelling on three issues: their objections to the view of Francois Recanati on “presemantic” effects; the relation between their theory of quotation and the “Proper Name Theory,” which they reject; and their treatment of mixed quotation, which rests on the claim that quotation expressions are “syntactic chameleons.”

Igor Burkhanov. Linguistic Foundations of Ideography: Semantic Analysis and Ideographic Dictionaries

In his book, Igor Burkhanov assumes that cognitive semantics, as developed mainly in the United States of America from about 1980, is a linguistic innovation which lends itself to a thorough renovation of pedagogical dictionaries. In order to show this convincingly, he discusses lexicography as an applied discipline of linguistics with the study of meaning at its centre. The various types of ideographical (onomasiological) dictionaries extant are presented and the development of semantics is unravelled from the field theory of the early 20th century to the present. After a general sketch of the learner's ideographical dictionary, the possible contribution of cognitive semantics is shown in a number of sample entries. The book is evaluated as being highly informative and equally highly honest, because the many shortcomings and deficiencies of pedagogical metalexicography are pointed out. A careful weighing of its statements gives occasion for some critical ideas about the relationship between linguistics and philology, the terminology and typology of ideographical dictionaries, and the feasibility of the proposed new dictionaries for didactic purposes.

How Do We Communicate About Pain? A Systematic Analysis of the Semantic Contribution of Co-speech Gestures in Pain-focused Conversations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate co-speech gesture use during communication about pain. Speakers described a recent pain experience and the data were analyzed using a ‘semantic feature approach’ to determine the distribution of information across gesture and speech. This analysis revealed that a considerable proportion of pain-focused talk was accompanied by gestures, and that these gestures often contained more information about pain than speech itself. Further, some gestures represented information that was hardly represented in speech at all. Overall, these results suggest that gestures are integral to the communication of pain and need to be attended to if recipients are to obtain a fuller understanding of the pain experience and provide help and support to pain sufferers.

Instrumental with and use: modality and implicature

I present an analysis of the instrumental elements with and use, as in Betty cut the cake with a knife. A variety of evidence indicates that with and use do not make the same semantic contribution, casting doubt on the theory that these elements introduce the thematic role Instrument. For use, I adopt the analysis in Rissman (to appear): use expresses modal, goal-related content. For with, a modal reading may be implicated but is not entailed, explaining a variety of contrasts between with and use. The implications of this analysis for a theory of thematic roles is discussed.

The Semantic Uniformity of Traces: Evidence from Ellipsis Parallelism

This article presents an argument from ellipsis parallelism that traces of all types of movement receive a bound variable interpretation at LF. MaxElide, a constraint on ellipsis, is used to probe the size of parallelism domains and detect the semantic contribution of a variety of traces. The data examined reveal a detailed interaction between wh-movement from various positions, T-to-C movement, and movement of subjects. I offer an analysis based on the overlapping variable-binder relationships created by these movements. The theoretical conclusion is that Ā-, A-, and head movement all produce traces that feed interpretation. This conclusion argues directly against several proposals that deprive non-Ā movements of (certain) semantic effects—for example, proposals that head movement occurs at PF, or that A-movement does not leave traces.

A Pragmatic Study of -ketun Conditionals in Korean

This paper aims to characterize the constraint on the use of the conditional marker -ketun in Korean and discuss its discourse functional features. First of all, we argue that -ketun is licensed only in the contexts of deontic modality where the will of the discourse participants (speaker and hearer) is involved. Second, based on a critical review of Lee (1996) and Yeom (2005), we argue that 'hypotheticality' cannot be a defining feature that can correctly characterize the acceptable domain of -ketun. By further developing the perspective by Koo (1989), we propose [-immediately speaker-verified] as its defining feature. Evidence comes from our observation that a -ketun clause is used typically to describe an event or situation of which its truth or realization is verified later by someone (typically by the hearer). We further observe that what the speaker has just realized at a discourse site is not allowed to be marked by a -ketun clause. We show how this newly proposed feature can account for all and only the felicitous contexts of the -ketun conditional construction. Finally, against Lee (1998), we argue that the feature [+contrastive] is not a defining feature of the constraint of -ketun, but a corollary feature to its typical function as a contrastive topic in the flow of discourse, which is attributable to the semantic contribution of the morpheme -tun.

Goal PPs and Their Eventuality

I argue in this paper that Korean directional SVCs license telic accomplishment interpretation, which is derived by the interaction of V1, directional V2, and a goal PP. The goal PP functions as a secondary resultative predicate and contributes to bounded reading of the whole sentence, whether its head is -ey or -(u)lo. Discussing telic behavior of directional SVCs with an -(u)lo PP, I claim that their (a)telicity is not straightforwardly judged by the presence of the -(u)lo PP. The -(u)lo PP can denote either an unbounded directional path or a bounded goal path, which is determined by the combinatory work of [PP-V1-V2] usually with a semantic or pragmatic contribution of other lexical items. I also discuss aspectual properties and structural differences of directional SVCs, based on Ramchands (2009) first-phase event structure syntax.

Morphosemantic Mismatches, Structural Economy, and Licensing

Agreement and concord involve mismatches between the position where a syntactic or semantic contribution is made and where it is expressed morphologically. Such mismatches are often taken to involve either movement or the spreading and realization of features. I examine a number of superficially different instances of this kind of mismatch that seem to resist an account based on realization and movement alone. I argue that the patterns involved should receive a unified account in terms of licensors, elements subject to a condition of structural economy that associate indirectly with semantically contentful heads through features that those heads spread and that require a c-commanding licensor.

Between Specification and Explanation: About a German Discourse Particle

AbstractThis paper provides a unified semantic and discourse pragmatic analysis of the German particle nämlich, traditionally described as having a specificational and an explanative reading. Our claim is that nämlich is a discourse marker which signals that the expression it is attached to is a short (elliptic) answer to a salient implicit question about the previous utterance. We show how both the explanative and the specificational reading can be derived from this more general semantic contribution. In addition we discuss some cross linguistic consequences of our analysis.

Right hemisphere has the last laugh: neural dynamics of joke appreciation

Understanding a joke relies on semantic, mnemonic, inferential, and emotional contributions from multiple brain areas. Anatomically constrained magnetoencephalography (aMEG) combining high-density whole-head MEG with anatomical magnetic resonance imaging allowed us to estimate where the humor-specific brain activations occur and to understand their temporal sequence. Punch lines provided either funny, not funny (semantically congruent), or nonsensical (incongruent) replies to joke questions. Healthy subjects rated them as being funny or not funny. As expected, incongruous endings evoke the largest N400m in left-dominant temporo-prefrontal areas, due to integration difficulty. In contrast, funny punch lines evoke the smallest N400m during this initial lexical–semantic stage, consistent with their primed “surface congruity” with the setup question. In line with its sensitivity to ambiguity, the anteromedial prefrontal cortex may contribute to the subsequent “second take” processing, which, for jokes, presumably reflects detection of a clever “twist” contained in the funny punch lines. Joke-selective activity simultaneously emerges in the right prefrontal cortex, which may lead an extended bilateral temporo-frontal network in establishing the distant unexpected creative coherence between the punch line and the setup. This progression from an initially promising but misleading integration from left frontotemporal associations, to medial prefrontal ambiguity evaluation and right prefrontal reprocessing, may reflect the essential tension and resolution underlying humor.

OLearner – An Ontology Based Learning Content Management System to Support Semantic Search and Contribution of Learning Objects

E-Learning is a fast, just-in-time, learning process, which is becoming popular in distributed and dynamic environments such as the World Wide Web. The core of E-Learning is Learning Content Management System (LCMS). Traditional LCMS supports search of learning objects based on keywords. The conventional approach provides relevant as well as non-relevant results as they do not consider user's context. Also, precise search of non-textual resources such as audio-visual or multimedia based resources is not possible as these are not simple document files where keywords could be searched. The learner has to spend large amount of time in screening the learning resource to determine the best suiting his/her current learning requirements. In this paper an ontology based LCMS has been discussed. Ontology is a formal description of concepts in a real-world domain and helps to store the semantic information of that domain. It is more expressive than any other standard database model and facilitates knowledge sharing and reuse, i.e. a common understanding of various contents that reaches across people and applications. Developed LCMS incorporates semantic capabilities with the help of ontologies to enable semantic based contribution and retrieval of learning objects. Two very useful ontologies are created to describe the learner profile and the learning content. These ontologies have been used to classify the learning material, organize topics of a course and store the information pertaining to learner's profile. The proposed OLearner LCMS facilitates a resource contributor to contribute the resource to the OLearner portal with the metadata corresponding to the learning content and learner profile ontologies. These ontologies are further useful for a learner in searching a more precise and appropriate learning object.

Single-letter coloring and spatial cuing do not eliminate or reduce a semantic contribution to the Stroop effect

The automaticity of semantic activation in the Stroop task is still the subject of considerable debate (Augustinova & Ferrand, 2007; Manwell, Roberts, & Besner, 2004). The present experiments were designed to assess whether coloring and cuing a single letter (vs. all letters) in the Stroop task reliably eliminates semantically based Stroop interference or whether the elimination observed by Manwell et al. was due to insufficient statistical power. Experiment 1 was an exact replication of the experiment conducted by Manwell and colleagues and involved a large population. Experiment 2 replicated and extended Experiment 1 by controlling for initial fixation. In line with previous findings obtained by Augustinova and Ferrand, both experiments indicated that coloring and cuing a single letter failed to eliminate or even reduce the semantically based Stroop effect. Thus, these results add to the growing body of evidence suggesting that semantic activation in the Stroop task is automatic.