Download Implicit causality: When more than one explanation is missing

Implicitcausality:Whenmorethanoneexplanationismissing
Israel de la Fuente (STL, CNRS, Univ. Lille 3), Marie Benzerrak, Natalia Kalashnikova, Lala Naziyeva,
Ching-chun Wang, & Barbara Hemforth (LLF, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Diderot)
CORPUS OF FRENCH IC-VERBS (MERTZ, AMSILI, HEMFORTH, IN PREP)
INTRODUCTION
Ithasbeenshown(delaFuente 2015;delaFuenteetal.,2016)thatfocusparticleslike“only”and“even”givewaytoapatternofpronoun
productionandresolutionsimilartowhathasbeenobservedwithimplicitcausality(IC)verbslike“criticize”or“annoy”in (1)whereso-calledN1biasedverbslike“annoyed”systematicallytriggerexplanationsrelatedtothesubject(Peter)andN2-biasedverbslike“criticized”continuations
relatedtotheobject(Mary)(e.g.Ferstl etal.,2011;Garvey&Caramazza,1974;Koorneef etal.,2006).
RESULTS
1)a.PeterannoyedMarybecause...he...
b.PetercriticizedMarybecause...she ...
Similarly,continuationstudiesinEnglishandinFrench,withsentenceslike(2)usingunbiasedverbs,showedthat“only”systematicallytriggers
continuationsrelatedtotheantecedentinitsscope,whiletheantecedentinthescopeof“even”issystematicallydispreferred (delaFuente,2015).
Mertzetal.establishedacorpusof300FrenchImplicitCausalityverbssimilartoFerstl etal.’s(2011)corpusofEnglishverbs.
Verbsweredistributedacross5listsof60verbseachandverbbiaseswereestimatedfromabout60continuationsforeachverb.
10N1biasedverbs(+70%N1choices),10N2biasedverbs(+70%N2choices)and10unbiasedverbs(between45and55%N1
choices)wereselectedforthisexperiment.
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94.2%ofthecontinuationsunambiguouslyreferredtoN1orN2.
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Logisticregressionsshowed:
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Both,focusparticlesaswellastheIC-biasoftheverbhaveasignificanteffect(FP:z=4.471,p<.001;IC-bias:
N1/N2:z=-8.932,p<.001;N1/no-bias:z=-4.329,p<.001).
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Asexpected,matchingcasesshowedaverystrongbias(Only+N1-bias=79%N1;Even+N2-bias:81%N2),while
mismatchingcasesweremorevaried.
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Completionsseemtoprovideonlyoneofthemissingexplanations.
(2)a.OnlyPetercalledMarybecause...he...
b.EvenPetercalledMarybecause...she…
Implicitcausalityandmissingexplanations:
ICverbs,whencombinedwithdiscourseconnectiveslikebecause,createexpectationsforanexplanationabouttheensuingdiscoursethatneed
tobefilledtoavoidtheaccommodationofmissinginformation(Bott &Solstad,2014)
Weassumethatthesamekindofexplanationisatstakeforfocusparticles:
“Only”triggersamissingexplanationofpresupposedexclusivity,i.e.whydoesonlyPetercallandnobodyelse.
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“Even”involvesanimplicatureofunlikeliness,triggeringanexplanationoftheunlikelinessofPetercalling,i.e.whatitis
aboutMarythatmakesevenhimcall.
… il est heureux pourelle /… he is happyforher.
…elle lemerite vraiment./… she really deserves it.
QUESTIONS
1.0
RESEARCH
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Seul Pierrefélicite Auriane parce qu’(OnlyPierrecongratulatesAuriane because…)
Openquestion:WhathappenswhenwecombineICbiasedverbswithfocusparticlesthusprovokingmatchingor
mismatchingexpectations?
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N2
AreverbbiasandFPbiasbothcontributingtomissingexpectations?
no_bias
Canthestrongsemanticrequirementsoffocusparticlesoverrideormaskverbbiases?
0.8
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N1
Frequency of N1 choices
PREDICTIONS
Ifbothfactorscontribute:
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Matchingbiases(evenN2+N2-biasedverb;onlyN1+N1-biasedverb)wherethefocusparticleandtheverbbiasdemandanexplanation
relatedtothesameantecedentshouldtriggerthestrongestbiasessinceasingleexplanationcaneasilybefoundtofilldiscourseneeds(e.g.
“OnlyPeterfascinatesMarybecauseheisjustthebest.”,“EvenPetercriticizedMarybecauseshereallymessedupthistime.”).
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Inmismatchingcases(evenN2+N1-biasedverb;onlyN1+N2-biasedverb),onlyoneofthemissingexplanationscaneasilybeprovided.In(3)
wecaneitherexplainexclusivity(...becauseheisneversatisfied)ortheN2-biasoftheverb(...becauseshehadmessedup.).
0.6
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Completionexamples:
0.4
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(3)OnlyPetercriticizedMarybecause...
Ifthesemanticsoffocusparticlesoverridesverbbias,“seul”(only)shouldleadtoanN1bias,“même“ (even)toanN2bias.
0.2
CONTINUATION EXPERIMENT: DESIGN
seul
N1 bias Seul Marieenchante Adrienparcqu’...
'Only MaryenchantsAdrianbecause...
N2 bias Seul Pierrefélicite Auriane parce qu’...
Only PetercongratulatesAuriane
because...
No
bias
0.0
Materials
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2 factors
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Verb based IC bias (10 N1 verbs, 10 N2 verbs, 10 unbiased verbs)
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Focus particle based IC bias (seul-N1, même-N2)
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84 native French participants recruited from the RISC page and via social media
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Continuation task administered via IbexFarm http://adrummond.net/software
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Participants were provided with 30 sentence onsets distributed across two lists as in Table 1 which they had to complete
meme
même
CONCLUSION
Même Marieenchante Adrienparcqu’...
EvenMaryenchantsAdrianbecause...
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Même Pierrefélicite Auriane parcequ’...
Even Petercongratulates Auriane because
...
Seul Pierrefréquente Marieparcequ’... Même Pierrefréquente Marieparcequ’...
Only Petervisits Mariebecause ...
Even Petervisits Mariebecause ...
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seul
Missingexpectationstriggeredbyfocusparticlesorbyverbbiasbothcontributetonextmention
preferenceswithoutonemaskingtheother.
Futureresearch:Arethemismatchedcaseslessacceptable?
REFERENCES
Bott,O.&Solstad,T.(2014).Fromverbtodiscourse:Anovelaccountofimplicitcausality.InB.Hemforth&B.Mertins,&C.Fabricius-Hansen(Eds.):Psycholinguisticapproaches to
meaningandunderstanding acrosslanguages (StudiesinTheoreticalPsycholinguistics),Springer.
delaFuente,I.(2015).Puttingpronoun resolutionincontext:Theroleofsyntax,semantics,andpragmaticsinpronoun interpretation.UnpublishedPhDdissertation.Université ParisDiderot,France.
delaFuente,I.,Hemforth,B.,Colonna,S.,&Schimke,S.(2016)Theroleofsyntax,semantics,andpragmaticsinpronounresolution:Across-linguisticoverview.InEmpirical
perspectives onanaphor resolution,11-32.Holler,A.,Suckow,K.(Eds.)Berlin/Boston:DeGruyter.
Ferstl,E.,Garnham,A.&Manouilidou C.(2011).ImplicitcausalitybiasinEnglish:acorpusof300verbs.Behav ResMethods,43(1):124-35.
Garvey,C.,&Caramazza, A.(1974).Implicitcausalityinverbs.LinguisticInquiry,5,459–464.
Table 1. Example of sentence onsets used for the continuation experiment
Koornneef,A.W.,&VanBerkum,J.J.A.(2006).Ontheuseofverb-basedimplicitcausalityinsentencecomprehension:Evidencefromself-pacedreadingandeyetracking.Journalof
Memory&Language, 54,445–465.
Mertz,J.,Amsili,P.,&HemforthB.(inprep.)ImplicitcausalitybiasinFrench:Aninventoryof300verbs.