Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Cogn Psychol. 2012 Sep;65(2):352-79. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2012.04.001. Epub 2012 Jun 7.
What makes a discourse coherent? One potential factor has been discussed in the linguistic literature in terms of a Question under Discussion (QUD). This approach claims that discourse proceeds by continually raising explicit or implicit questions, viewed as sets of alternatives, or competing descriptions of the world. If the interlocutor accepts the question, it becomes the QUD, a narrowed set of alternatives to be addressed (Roberts, in press). Three eye movement recording studies are reported that investigated the effect of a preceding explicit QUD (Experiment 1) or implicit QUD (Experiments 2 and 3) on the processing of following text. Experiment 1 revealed an effect of whether the question queried alternative propositions or alternative entities. Reading times in the answer were faster when the answer it provided was of the same semantic type as was queried. Experiment 2 tested QUDs implied by the alternative description of reality introduced by a non-actuality implicature trigger such as should X or want to X. The results, when combined with the results of Experiment 3 (which ruled out a possible alternative interpretation) showed disrupted reading of a following verb phrase that failed to resolve the implicit QUD (Did the discourse participant actually X?), compared to reading the same material in the absence of a clear QUD. The findings support an online role for QUDs in guiding readers' structuring and interpretation of discourse.
语篇的连贯性是由什么决定的？在语言学文献中，有一种潜在的因素被称为讨论中的问题（Question under Discussion，QUD）。这种方法认为，语篇是通过不断提出明确或隐含的问题来进行的，这些问题被视为一组可供选择的或相互竞争的对世界的描述。如果对话者接受了这个问题，那么它就成为了 QUD，一个需要解决的可供选择的问题集（Roberts，in press）。本文报告了三项眼动记录研究，这些研究调查了先前的明确 QUD（实验 1）或隐含 QUD（实验 2 和实验 3）对后续文本处理的影响。实验 1 揭示了问题询问替代命题还是替代实体的影响。当答案提供的是与被询问的语义类型相同时，答案的阅读时间更快。实验 2 测试了由非事实蕴涵触发器（如 should X 或 want to X）引入的对现实的替代描述所隐含的 QUD。当将这些结果与实验 3 的结果（排除了可能的替代解释）结合起来时，结果表明，与没有明确的 QUD 时相比，读者在阅读无法解决隐含的 QUD（即话语参与者是否真的 X？）的后续动词短语时会出现阅读中断。这些发现支持了 QUD 在在线指导读者构建和解释语篇方面的作用。
