Processing references in context: when the polar bear does not meet a polar bear.
Cogn Process
; 24(4): 497-520, 2023 Nov.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37453018
ABSTRACT
Discourse understanding is hampered when missing or conflicting context information is given. In four experiments, we investigated what happens (a) when the definite determiner "the," which presupposes existence and uniqueness, does not find a unique referent in the context or (b) when the appropriate use of the indefinite determiner is violated by the presence of a unique referent (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2). To focus on the time-course of processing the uniqueness presupposition of the definite determiner, we embedded the determiner in different sentence structures and varied the context (Experiment 3 and Experiment 4). Reading time served as an index of processing difficulty in a word-by-word self-paced reading task and acceptability judgments provided hints for a possible repair of a presupposition violation. Our results showed that conflicting and missing context information lowered acceptability ratings and was associated with prolonged reading times. The pattern of results differed depending on the nature of the presupposition (Experiments 1 and 2) and whether supplementing missing context information was possible (Experiment 3 and Experiment 4). Our findings suggest that different cognitive processes come into play when interpreting presuppositions in order to get a meaningful interpretation of a discourse.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Ursidae
Limite:
Animals
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article