Semantic Information and the Syntax of Propositional Attitude Verbs

Propositional attitude verbs, such as think and want, have long held interest for both theoretical linguists and language acquisitionists because their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties display complex interactions that have proven difficult to fully capture from either perspective. This paper explores the granularity with which these verbs’ semantic and pragmatic properties are recoverable from their syntactic distributions, using three behavioral experiments aimed at explicitly quantifying the relationship between these two sets of properties. Experiment 1 gathers a measure of 30 propositional attitude verbs’ syntactic distributions using an acceptability judgment task. Experiments 2a and 2b gather measures of semantic similarity between those same verbs using a generalized semantic discrimination (triad or “odd man out”) task and an ordinal (Likert) scale task, respectively. Two kinds of analyses are conducted on the data from these experiments. The first compares both the acceptability judgments and the semantic similarity judgments to previous classifications derived from the syntax and semantics literature. The second kind compares the acceptability judgments to the semantic similarity judgments directly. Through these comparisons, we show that there is quite fine‐grained information about propositional attitude verbs’ semantics carried in their syntactic distributions—whether one considers the sorts of discrete qualitative classifications that linguists traditionally work with or the sorts of continuous quantitative classifications that can be derived experimentally.     

How Do Children Restrict Their Linguistic Generalizations? An (Un‐)Grammaticality Judgment Study

A paradox at the heart of language acquisition research is that, to achieve adult‐like competence, children must acquire the ability to generalize verbs into non‐attested structures, while avoiding utterances that are deemed ungrammatical by native speakers. For example, children must learn that, to denote the reversal of an action, un‐ can be added to many verbs, but not all (e.g., roll/unroll; close/*unclose). This study compared theoretical accounts of how this is done. Children aged 5–6 (N = 18), 9–10 (N = 18), and adults (N = 18) rated the acceptability of un‐ prefixed forms of 48 verbs (and, as a control, bare forms). Across verbs, a negative correlation was observed between the acceptability of ungrammatical un‐ prefixed forms (e.g., *unclose) and the frequency of (a) the bare form and (b) alternative forms (e.g., open), supporting the entrenchment and pre‐emption hypotheses, respectively. Independent ratings of the extent to which verbs instantiate the semantic properties characteristic of a hypothesized semantic cryptotype for un‐ prefixation were a significant positive predictor of acceptability, for all age groups. The relative importance of each factor differed for attested and unattested un‐ forms and also varied with age. The findings are interpreted in the context of a new hybrid account designed to incorporate the three factors of entrenchment, pre‐emption, and verb semantics.     

Direct Versus Indirect Causation as a Semantic Linguistic Universal: Using a Computational Model of English,Hebrew, Hindi,Japanese, and K'iche’ Mayan to Predict Grammaticality Judgments in Balinese

The aim of this study was to test the claim that languages universally employ morphosyntactic marking to differentiate events of more- versus less-direct causation, preferring to mark them with less- and more- overt marking, respectively (e.g., Somebody broke the window vs. Somebody MADE the window break; *Somebody cried the boy vs. Somebody MADE the boy cry). To this end, we investigated whether a recent computational model which learns to predict speakers’ by-verb relative preference for the two causatives in English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and K'iche’ Mayan is able to generalize to a sixth language on which it has never been trained: Balinese. Judgments of the relative acceptability of the less- and more-transparent causative forms of 60 verbs were collected from 48 native-speaking Balinese adults. The composite crosslinguistic computational model was able to predict these judgments, not only for verbs that it had seen, but also––in a split-half validation test––to verbs that it had never seen in any language. A “random-semantics” model showed only a relatively small decrement in performance with seen verbs, whose behavior can be learned on a verb-by-verb basis, but achieved zero correlation with human judgments when generalizing to unseen verbs. Together, these findings suggest that Balinese conceptualizes directness of causation in a similar way to these unrelated languages, and therefore constitute support for the view that the distinction between more- versus less-distinct causation constitutes a morphosyntactic universal.     

Grammaticality,Acceptability, and Probability: A Probabilistic View of Linguistic Knowledge

The question of whether humans represent grammatical knowledge as a binary condition on membership in a set of well‐formed sentences, or as a probabilistic property has been the subject of debate among linguists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists for many decades. Acceptability judgments present a serious problem for both classical binary and probabilistic theories of grammaticality. These judgements are gradient in nature, and so cannot be directly accommodated in a binary formal grammar. However, it is also not possible to simply reduce acceptability to probability. The acceptability of a sentence is not the same as the likelihood of its occurrence, which is, in part, determined by factors like sentence length and lexical frequency. In this paper, we present the results of a set of large‐scale experiments using crowd‐sourced acceptability judgments that demonstrate gradience to be a pervasive feature in acceptability judgments. We then show how one can predict acceptability judgments on the basis of probability by augmenting probabilistic language models with an acceptability measure. This is a function that normalizes probability values to eliminate the confounding factors of length and lexical frequency. We describe a sequence of modeling experiments with unsupervised language models drawn from state‐of‐the‐art machine learning methods in natural language processing. Several of these models achieve very encouraging levels of accuracy in the acceptability prediction task, as measured by the correlation between the acceptability measure scores and mean human acceptability values. We consider the relevance of these results to the debate on the nature of grammatical competence, and we argue that they support the view that linguistic knowledge can be intrinsically probabilistic.     

Parallels in Preschoolers' and Adults' Judgments About Ownership Rights and Bodily Rights

Understanding ownership rights is necessary for socially appropriate behavior. We provide evidence that preschoolers' and adults' judgments of ownership rights are related to their judgments of bodily rights. Four‐year‐olds (n = 70) and adults (n = 89) evaluated the acceptability of harmless actions targeting owned property and body parts. At both ages, evaluations did not vary for owned property or body parts. Instead, evaluations were influenced by two other manipulations—whether the target belonged to the agent or another person, and whether that other person approved of the action. Moreover, these manipulations influenced judgments for owned objects and body parts in the same way: When the other person approved of the action, participants' judgments were positive regardless of who the target belonged to. In contrast, when that person disapproved, judgments depended on who the target belonged to. These findings show that young children grasp the importance of approval or consent for ownership rights and bodily rights, and likewise suggest that people's notions of ownership rights are related to their appreciation of bodily rights.     

American English Usage Frequencies for Noun Phrase and Tensed Sentence Complement-Taking Verbs

The present research documents the American English usage frequencies for 136 verbs that occur with noun phrase and tensed sentence complements (e.g., accepted, noun phrase complement: The student knew the answer yesterday, tensed sentence complement: The student knew the answer was correct). This class of verbs has been the focus of numerous empirical studies investigating how syntactic ambiguity is resolved during language comprehension (Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; Garnsey, Pearlmutter, Myers, & Lotocky, 1997; Holmes, Stowe, & Cupples, 1989; Kennedy, Murray, Jennings, & Reid, 1989; Kennison, 1995; Rayner & Frazier, 1987; Trueswell, Tanenhaus, & Kello, 1993). The frequencies for noun phrase complements, tensed sentence complements, prepositional phrase complements, infinitival complements, and other usages are provided, as well as the frequencies with which specific verbs occur with the overt complementizer that in tensed sentence complements.     

Semantic components in the literal and metaphorical use of movement verbs

The study analyzes acceptability judgments relating to sentences that have the same syntactic structure (subject-verb-locative) and varying possibilities of semantic anomaly. Twelve movement verbs were used—that is, 12 verbs indicating a change in position or location; a componential analysis of these verbs was carried out beforehand by the authors. In all, 288 sentences were constructed by combining these 12 verbs with 24 subject-locative pairs. The subjects (university students) were asked to judge the acceptability of the sentences on a 5-step scale. The data were subjected to two methods of factor analysis; in this way three factors were revealed. By examining the verbs loaded on the three factors in the light of the abovementioned componential analysis, it was found that certain components, if present, reduced the probability that a sentence would be judged acceptable in a metaphorical sense; this was especially true of the components use of instruments and typically human character of the action, which, in the sentences with nonhuman subject, are contradictory with the meaning of the subject, and of medium-specific, often contradictory with the meaning of the locative. The results are discussed in relation to some theoretical and methodological problems in current research on the comprehension of metaphor.     

Semantics versus statistics in the retreat from locative overgeneralization errors

The present study investigated how children learn that some verbs may appear in the figure-locative but not the ground-locative construction (e.g., Lisa poured water into the cup; *Lisa poured the cup with water), with some showing the opposite pattern (e.g., *Bart filled water into the cup; Bart filled the cup with water), and others appearing in both (Lisa sprayed water onto the flowers; Lisa sprayed the flowers with water). Grammatical acceptability judgments were obtained for the use of each of 142 locative verbs (60 for children) in each sentence type. Overall, and for each age group individually, the judgment data were best explained by a model that included ratings of the extent to which each verb exhibits both the broad- and narrow-range semantic properties of the figure- and ground-locative constructions (relating mainly to manner and end-state respectively; Pinker, 1989) and the statistical-learning measure of overall verb frequency (entrenchment; Braine & Brooks, 1995). A second statistical-learning measure, frequency in each of the two locative constructions (pre-emption; Goldberg, 1995), was found to have no additional dissociable effect. We conclude by drawing together various theoretical proposals to arrive at a possible account of how semantics and statistics interact in the retreat from overgeneralization.     

When being far away is good: Exploring how mortality salience,regulatory mode,and goal progress affect judgments of meaning in life

Research indicates that death‐relevant thoughts (mortality salience) have a nuanced effect on judgments of life's meaningfulness. Thoughts of death diminish meaning in life only among people who lack or do not readily engage psychological structures that confer meaning. Building on this past research, the current research examined how an important source of meaning, long‐term goal progress, affects the ways that death‐relevant cognitions impact judgments of life's meaning. In Study 1 (N = 118), mortality salience decreased perceptions of meaning in life only among participants who were induced to feel closer to (vs. farther from) completing a long‐term goal. Study 2 (N = 259) extended these findings by demonstrating the moderating influence of individual differences in locomotion. Mortality salience again decreased perceptions of meaning in life among participants who felt closer to accomplishing a long‐term goal, but it only did so among people who do not quickly adopt new goals to pursue (i.e., those low in locomotion). The implications of these findings for better understanding how people maintain meaning in the face of existential concerns and how aspects of goal pursuit affect these processes are discussed.     

Intensional verbs in event semantics

In Attitude Problems, I gave an account of opacity in the complement of intensional transitive verbs that combined neo-Davidsonian event-semantics with a hidden-indexical account of substitution failure. In this paper, I extend the account to clausal verbs.     

It Takes Two To Tango: Understanding and Acquiring Symmetrical Verbs

Children's ability to understand symmetrical verbs was investigated, along with adults' use of linguistic and visual cues to learn novel symmetrical verbs. Symmetrical verbs encode a relationship r between two entities such that X r Y entails Y r X. In Experiment 1, sixteen children (mean age 4;8) acted out two types of sentences with symmetrical and asymmetrical verbs. Eight adult judges viewed videotapes of the children's performance and tried to guess what sentence type was being enacted. Judges' performance was predicted(p < .05) by the verb type, symmetrical or asymmetrical. In Experiment 2, seventy-two adult subjects received visual and linguistic cues to the meanings of novel verbs. Both cue types affected subjects' judgments about whether the new verbs were symmetrical or asymmetrical (p < .05).     

Is Passive Syntax Semantically Constrained? Evidence From Adult Grammaticality Judgment and Comprehension Studies

To explain the phenomenon that certain English verbs resist passivization (e.g., *£5 was cost by the book), Pinker (1989) proposed a semantic constraint on the passive in the adult grammar: The greater the extent to which a verb denotes an action where a patient is affected or acted upon, the greater the extent to which it is compatible with the passive. However, a number of comprehension and production priming studies have cast doubt upon this claim, finding no difference between highly affecting agent‐patient/theme‐experiencer passives (e.g., Wendy was kicked/frightened by Bob) and non‐actional experiencer theme passives (e.g., Wendy was heard by Bob). The present study provides evidence that a semantic constraint is psychologically real, and is readily observed when more fine‐grained independent and dependent measures are used (i.e., participant ratings of verb semantics, graded grammaticality judgments, and reaction time in a forced‐choice picture‐matching comprehension task). We conclude that a semantic constraint on the passive must be incorporated into accounts of the adult grammar.     

Subclinical delusional ideation and appreciation of sample size and heterogeneity in statistical judgment

Previous studies demonstrate that people high in delusional ideation exhibit a data‐gathering bias on inductive reasoning tasks. The current study set out to investigate the factors that may underpin such a bias by examining healthy individuals, classified as either high or low scorers on the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory (PDI). More specifically, whether high PDI scorers have a relatively poor appreciation of sample size and heterogeneity when making statistical judgments. In Expt 1, high PDI scorers made higher probability estimates when generalizing from a sample of 1 with regard to the heterogeneous human property of obesity. In Expt 2, this effect was replicated and was also observed in relation to the heterogeneous property of aggression. The findings suggest that delusion‐prone individuals are less appreciative of the importance of sample size when making statistical judgments about heterogeneous properties; this may underpin the data gathering bias observed in previous studies. There was some support for the hypothesis that threatening material would exacerbate high PDI scorers' indifference to sample size.     

Does Time Fly 20 m above the Ground? Exploring the Role of Affective Response on Time Perception in a High‐risk Sport

A field study (n = 61) was performed in a Via Ferrata to explore how affective response influences time perception during an arousing activity in a real‐life setting (passing through a 69‐m‐long, 20‐m‐high, two‐rope bridge). Two questionnaires were administered (i) at the end point of the bridge (high‐arousing condition) and (ii) close to the end of the Via Ferrata (low‐arousing condition). Participants assessed their affect (arousal, valence, and dominance) and provided retrospective (duration estimation and passage of time judgments) and prospective (to produce a subjective minute using a stopwatch) temporal judgments. The results showed that the actual performance mediated the relationship between affect and retrospective time perception measures, with the exception of dominance, which directly predicted passage of time judgments. Regarding prospective measures, an increase in arousal was parallel to shorter temporal productions. The results are discussed in terms of the emotional factors underlying time perception in ecological contexts.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond self-report in the study of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being: Correlations with acquaintance reports, clinician judgments and directly observed social behavior

Surprisingly little is known about how well-being is related to social reputation, clinician judgments, and directly observed social behaviors. This study presents data that bear directly on these issues, along with comparing the personality and behavioral correlates of subjective happiness, a measurement based on a hedonic conceptualization of well-being, with psychological well-being, a eudaimonic conceptualization. The findings demonstrate remarkable consistency in the pattern of correlates of the two measures across acquaintance ratings, clinician judgments, and directly observed social behaviors. By either conceptualization, people high in well-being enjoy positive social reputations (e.g., cheerful, sociable, satisfied with life), are rated as well-adjusted by clinicians (e.g., consistent, resilient), and can be observed to exhibit adaptive social behaviors (e.g., social skill, expressiveness).     

Do verb bias effects on sentence production reflect sensitivity to comprehension or production factors?

Speakers should be motivated to produce easy-to-understand sentences, but they must successfully say sentences that are harder to produce. Four experiments assessed how verb bias influences the mention of the optional “that” in sentence-complement structures. Without the “that”, such sentences can be incorrectly interpreted as including direct objects (garden paths), and especially so after direct-object-biased verbs (compared to embedded-clause-biased verbs). But direct-object-biased verbs are rarely produced as sentence-complement structures, and so they might be harder to produce as such. Experiments 1 and 2 show that speakers mention the “that” more after direct-object-biased verbs than after embedded-clause-biased verbs. Experiment 3a shows that sentences with verbs biased toward neither direct objects nor embedded subjects were often produced with the “that”, and Experiment 3b shows that postverbal noun phrases after neither-biased verbs are interpreted as direct objects less than direct-object-biased verbs and so should cause a milder garden path. Thus, frequent “that” mention is not sensitive to the tendency of a verb to be followed by a direct object, but by how rarely the verb has been produced in the formulated structure.     

Examining the role of lexical frequency in the acquisition and processing of sentential complements

We present empirical data showing that the relative frequency with which a verb normally appears in a syntactic construction predicts young children's ability to remember and repeat sentences instantiating that construction. Children aged 2;10–5;8 years were asked to repeat grammatical and ungrammatical sentential complement sentences (e.g., ‘I think + S’). The sentences contained complement-taking verbs (CTVs) used with differing frequencies in children's natural speech. All children repeated sentences containing high frequency CTVs (e.g., think) more accurately than those containing low frequency CTVs (e.g., hear), and made more sophisticated corrections to ungrammatical sentences containing high frequency CTVs. The data suggest that, like adults, children are sensitive to lexico-constructional collocations. The implications for language acquisition are discussed.     

A Longitudinal Social Relations Analysis of Participation in Small Groups

Contrary to previous work in which task‐related judgments are hypothesized to predict participation in small groups, the current study assumes that participation is both an outcome of and an influence on judgments of task‐related ability. In this study, the association between task‐relevant judgments and participation was examined at two points in discussion. Results from a path analysis indicated that substantive participation during the first minute of discussion was positively related to task‐relevant judgments measured at the first‐minute time. In turn, those judgments were positively associated with subsequent substantive participation. Finally, substantive participation predicted judgments taken at discussion’s end. Nonsubstantive participation and judgments were not directly associated with each other. Discussion addresses theoretical and methodological issues raised by the findings.     

The role of frequency in the acquisition of English word order

Akhtar [Akhtar, N. (1999). Acquiring basic word order: Evidence for data-driven learning of syntactic structure. Journal of Child Language, 26, 339–356] taught children novel verbs in ungrammatical word orders. Her results suggested that the acquisition of canonical word order is a gradual, data-driven process. The current study adapted this methodology, using English verbs of different frequencies, to test whether children's use of word order as a grammatical marker depends upon the frequency of the lexical items being ordered. Ninety-six children in two age groups (2;9 and 3;9) heard either high frequency, medium frequency or low frequency verbs that were modeled in SOV order. Children aged 2;9 who heard low frequency verbs were significantly more likely to adopt the weird word order than those who heard higher frequency verbs. Children aged 3;9 preferred to use SVO order regardless of verb frequency. Furthermore, the younger children reverted to English word order using more arguments as verb frequency increased and used more pronouns than their older counterparts. This suggests that the ability to use English word order develops from lexically specific schemas formed around frequent, distributionally regular items (e.g. verbs, pronouns) into more abstract, productive schemas as experience of the language is accrued.