Relative Clause Effects at the Matrix Verb Depend on Type of Intervening Material

Although a large literature demonstrates that object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) are harder to process than subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs), there is less agreement regarding where during processing this difficulty emerges, as well as how best to explain these effects. An eye-tracking study by Staub, Dillon, and Clifton (2017) demonstrated that readers experience more processing difficulty at the matrix verb for ORCs than for SRCs when the matrix verb immediately follows the relative clause (RC), but the difficulty is eliminated if a prepositional phrase (PP) intervenes. A careful examination of Staub et al.’s materials reveals that the types of PPs used in the experiment were a mixture of locative and temporal PPs. This is important in that locative PPs can modify either a noun phrase or a verb phrase (VP), whereas temporal PPs typically modify VPs, resulting in systematic differences in PP attachment across ORCs versus SRCs. In the current eye-tracking experiment, we systematically manipulated RC type and PP type in the same sentences used by Staub et al. The manipulation of PP type resulted in a crossover pattern at the matrix verb such that there was a trend for reading times to be longer for ORCs than SRCs when the PP was locative, but reading times were longer for SRCs than ORCs when the PP was temporal. These results provide important information regarding the locus of RC-processing effects and highlight the importance of carefully considering how intervening material might unintentionally alter the structure or the meaning of a sentence.     

名词短语加工中个体量词通达的影响因素

“双系统”和“双向选择组合网络”理论认为,在汉语使用者的心理词典中存在名词系统和量词系统,两者之间存在双向选择关系。采用启动范式考察在名词短语产生和理解中量词的名词搭配量、名词的量词拥有量和量词-名词定配率对个体量词通达的影响。结果表明,量词的名词搭配量、名词的量词拥有量和量词-名词定配率显著地影响量词的词汇通达,量词和名词之间是双向选择关系。量词通达是直接通达和间接通达的有机结合。     

Effect of relation availability on the interpretation and access of familiar noun–noun compounds

Two experiments investigate whether relations that link the constituents of compounds during compound formation (e.g., teapot is formed by combining tea and pot using the relation head noun FOR modifier) also influence the processing of familiar compounds. Although there is evidence for the use of such relations in forming compounds, whether such relations affect the processing of familiar compounds is unknown. The data show clear effects of repetition and relational priming for written words on both a sense-nonsense task and a lexical decision task. These results indicate that the relation linking the constituents of familiar compounds is important to their access and use.     

动、名词损伤的脑功能性定位

动词与名词之间的差异近年来已引起认知心理学家、心理语言学家和神经语言学家的广泛兴趣。本文从神经语言学角度出发,以Levelt的语言产生模型为框架,对词语加工哪一水平上的损伤会导致动词和名词分离的研究进行了综述和评价。     

汉字习得的年龄对词类信息加工的影响

采用词类判断任务,考察汉语单字词的习得年龄对词类信息加工的影响。实验材料采用了习得年龄不同的名词和动词,结果显示,汉字习得年龄对词类判断的反应时有显著的预测作用。研究结果表明,汉字习得年龄影响汉字词类信息的提取,即早期习得的汉字被试更容易提取其词类信息;研究结果从新的角度支持了任意映射假设对词汇习得年龄效应的解释。     

本易理以诂易辞 由易辞以准易象——试论尚氏易学的特色及其对易学史的贡献

本文认为,本易理以诂易辞,由易辞以准易象,这是尚秉和先生注解《周易》的基本原则,也是他独辟蹊径所发明的注易新方法。依据此一原则和方法,尚先生一扫东汉以来易家注易迂曲立说、穿凿附会之风气,穷究易理,广搜易象,以易解易,以易证易,其对《周易》经、传的诠释,"六通四辟,若合符契"。由此不仅纠正了千百年来易家注易的诸多流弊和错误,而且也牢固地确立了尚秉和先生在易学史上的大师地位。     

从词汇量角度再探汉语婴儿是否存在“名词优势”

本研究采用交叉聚合设计,从词汇量角度考察了两岁左右汉语婴儿是否存在“名词优势”现象。在前测中,110名18、24和30个月龄的儿童接受了PCDI量表和父母问卷调查;6个月后,18个月和24个月组接受了PCDI量表的再测。本研究将“名词优势效应”定义为“（名词得分–动词得分）/词汇总分”（以k值表示）,将名词得分大于动词得分者定义为“名词优势者”。结果发现：（1）从各年龄组均值来看,18个月组名词优势效应较小（k = .07）,24及30个月组名词优势效应显著增大（k = .11~.19）。（2）从个体水平来看,18个月组名词优势者和动词优势者约各占50%（p > .05）,而24、30个月组中81~100%的儿童都是名词优势者。该结果提示,以往不同研究之间的分歧可能是由于名词优势是随年龄而动态变化的。     

The kindergarten path effect revisited: children's use of context in processing structural ambiguities

Research with adults has shown that ambiguous spoken sentences are resolved efficiently, exploiting multiple cues--including referential context--to select the intended meaning. Paradoxically, children appear to be insensitive to referential cues when resolving ambiguous sentences, relying instead on statistical properties intrinsic to the language such as verb biases. The possibility that children's insensitivity to referential context may be an artifact of the experimental design used in previous work was explored with 60 4- to 11-year-olds. An act-out task was designed to discourage children from making incorrect pragmatic inferences and to prevent premature and ballistic responses by enforcing delayed actions. Performance on this task was compared directly with the standard act-out task used in previous studies. The results suggest that young children (5 years) do not use contextual information, even under conditions designed to maximize their use of such cues, but that adult-like processing is evident by approximately 8 years of age. These results support and extend previous findings by Trueswell and colleagues (Cognition (1999), Vol. 73, pp. 89-134) and are consistent with a constraint-based learning account of children's linguistic development.     

Perceived certainty based on verbal probability phrases: Effect of directionality and its dependence on method

Verbal probability phrases (e.g. "possible" or "doubtful") have a feature called "directionality" ( Teigen & Brun, 1995 ), which focuses listeners on event occurrence or nonoccurrence. We conducted an experiment about certainty estimations based on verbal probabilities in order to examine the effect of directionality on perceived certainty. In measuring perceived certainty, we used scale-based method involving responses with a scale (e.g. 101 points' scale, 0 = unlikely to 100 = likely) and numerical method involving responses such as "50%." We found that, although the effect of directionality on perceived certainty was observed in using the scale-based method, the effect disappeared when the numerical method was used. We discuss these results from two types of information processing (intuitive, associative processing and deliberate, rule-based processing).     

动、名词词类特异性损伤的研究现状

词汇的各类知识信息（如,语法信息）在人脑中的表征和加工方式是当前学者们研究的热点之一,以患者为研究对象已成为了其中一种重要的研究手段。期间,人们发现脑损伤使得一些患者对动词或名词表现出选择性认知加工障碍,即出现了动、名词词类特异性损伤。通过探讨这一现象发生的机理,将为揭示词类的语法信息在人脑中的表征和加工方式提供了契机。文章介绍了这一现象的表现形式,即一些脑损伤患者对有关动词的知识比有关名词的知识丧失得更严重,而有些患者的损伤模式却与其恰好相反。另外,文中也阐述了对该现象的3种理论解释：语法解释、语义－概念解释和词典解释。