simple vs. partitive some Introduction - Google Sites

Meaning and production pressures in speakers’ choices: partitive some Judith Degen T. Florian Jaeger Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester ————————————————————————– ————————————————————————–

Abstract

The test case: simple vs. partitive some

In a corpus study on the choice of simple some vs. partitive some of DT, we find that the pressure to precisely encode an intended meaning operates in parallel with production pressures. The more similar the meaning of two forms, the larger the effect of production pressures. ————————————————————————–

————————————————————————– In psycholinguistics: a window onto production pressures

————————————————————————– Dataset 1237 cases of some-NPs (269 partitives, 23%) from Switchboard corpus after excluding cases that can only occur in one of the two forms (pronouns, singular count nouns, idioms) ————————————————————————– Predictors entered in mixed-effects logit model predicting partitive use:

————————————————————————– In theoretical linguistics: a window onto meaning differences

Meaning (discourse accessibility, Reed, 1991)

Choice between syntactic forms assumed to be driven by meaning differences (Dor, 2005; Gropen et al., 1989; Pinker, 1989)

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Study 2: Gradient Alternation Hypothesis

I(SOME | context) = − log( p(some | context) + p(some of DT | context))

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Number of cases

Results of MTurk ratings Form simple partitive

40 20 0

Methods. For each case, collected 10 Residual mean similarity similarity ratings of original to sentence with some (of) omitted to obtain a measure of some-NP strength (exploiting presuppositionality) −2

−1

0

1

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————————————————————————– ResultsOld/mediated NP Meaning factors are strongest, * Topical/subject NP *** but both UID factors and one Modified head ***availability factor affect partiCount head *** tive choice in predicted direction: more partitives with inHead frequency * creasing information of SOME Animate NP Info(SOME | NP head) and decreasing availability of * Info(SOME | previous word) head. * 0.0

Coefficient

1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 0.1 0.0 −0.1 −0.2 −0.3 0.5 0.0 −0.5 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.1 0.0 −0.1

strong(similarity breakpoint) simple and partitive less similar

Production pressures Availability UID

- previous mention of NP - frequency of head - I(SOME| NP head) - topicality of some-NP - animacy of head - I(SOME| previous word) - modification of head Alex ���� ate some (of the) cashews � �� � previous word NP head - head type (mass/count)

“a difference in syntactic form always spells a difference in meaning” (Bolinger, 1968)

−3

Hypotheses

Study 1: parallel pressures

Robust communication: Uniform Information Density Within the bounds defined by grammar, produce utterances that distribute information uniformly across the Info(u) = -logp(u) linguistic signal (Jaeger, 2010; Levy & Jaeger, 2007)

(Milsark, 1974; Ladusaw, 1994; Horn, 1997)

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Availability-based production: Avoid suspension of speech: utter available material first

2 meanings: weak sm vs. strong some

cashews. [combined meaning contribution]

2. Gradient Alternation Hypothesis: Effects of production pressures are more pronounced, the more similar the meanings that the speaker intends to convey by using one of the two forms are.

Extensive study of the choice between syntactic forms assumed to be meaning-equivalent, e.g., that-omission (Ferreira & Dell, 2000), active/passive (Bock & Irwin, 1980), ditransitive (Bresnan et al., 2007)

60

Alex ate SOME

1. Meaning and production pressures operate in parallel in quasialternations (when meanings of two forms are similar enough).

Introduction - syntactic alternations. . .

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————————————————————————– ——Alex ate some cashews. [simple some; shorter form] Alex ate some of the cashews. [partitive some; longer form]

Observations 500 600 700 800 900 1000 p value ●