[lingtalks] Lyn Frazier to speak at USC April 3rd

[Karma Dolma]

                                 Lyn Frazier

 
                                                                         



          University of Massachusetts, Amherst

             Monday, April 3, 2006 2:30-4:00 pm, GFS 101

              Reception to follow in GFS 330

 

                          Scale structure: Processing Maximum standard and
Minimum     

standard scalar adjectives



Abstract:

Gradable adjectives denote a function that takes an object and returns  a
measure of the degree to which the object possesses some gradable property
(Kennedy, 1999).  Scales, ordered sets of degrees, have begun to be studied
systematically in semantics (Kennedy, ms., Kennedy and McNally, 2005,
Rotstein and Winter, 2004).  In this talk, I will investigate  the
processing of Absolute adjectives with a Maximum standard (clean) and their
Minimum standard antonyms (dirty).  The central hypothesis is that the scale
introduced by the denotation of an Absolute adjective is processed
automatically as part of the comprehension of a sentence containing the
adjective (the "Obligatory Scale" hypothesis).  In line with the predictions
of Kennedy and McNally (2005) and Rotstein and Winter (2004), Maximum
standard adjectives and Minimum standard adjectives systematically differ
from each other when they are combined with minimizing modifiers like
slightly, as indicated by speeded acceptability judgments.  Results from an
eye movement recording study show that, as predicted by the Obligatory Scale
hypothesis, the penalty due to combining slightly with a Maximum standard
adjective can be observed during the processing of the sentence; the penalty
is not the result of some after-the-fact inferencing mechanism.  Further, a
type of Quantificational Variability Effect may be observed when a
quanticational adverb (mostly) is combined with a Minimum standard adjective
in sentences like The dishes are mostly clean/dirty.  The quantificational
variability results will be argued to further support the Obligatory Scale
hypothesis.  Time permitting, the processing of adjective/degree scales will
be contrasted with the behavior of the pragmatic entailment ('Horn') scales
implicated in the processing of scalar implicatures.

 


 

 

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