Carlson Katy
Department of English, 419 Combs Building, Morehead State University, Morehead, KY 40351, 606-783-2782; (fax) 606-783-9112.
Discourse Process. 2013;50(4):249-275. doi: 10.1080/0163853X.2013.778167.
Three self-paced reading experiments explored the processing of "only" and its interaction with context. In isolated sentences, the focus particle "only" predicts an upcoming contrast. Ambiguous replacive sentences (e.g., "The curator embarrassed the gallery owner in public, not the artist") with "only" on the subject or object showed faster reading of the contrast phrase ("not the artist") than without it. The position of "only" also influenced the phrase's meaning; despite a bias toward object contrasts, subject "only" increased subject interpretations. If preceding context provides another reason for the focus particle, it no longer predicts an upcoming contrast. In biasing contexts including indirect questions, there was no facilitation when "only" marked the argument which answered the question, while "only" on the other argument slowed processing. Both "only" and context influenced interpretation. The results show that focus particles and questions can each influence processing of an upcoming contrast on- and off-line.
三项自定步速阅读实验探究了“only”的处理过程及其与语境的相互作用。在孤立的句子中，焦点小品词“only”预示着即将出现的对比。在主语或宾语位置带有“only”的歧义替换句（例如，“馆长在公共场合让画廊老板难堪，而不是艺术家”），与没有“only”的情况相比，对对比短语（“而不是艺术家”）的阅读速度更快。“only”的位置也会影响短语的含义；尽管存在偏向宾语对比的倾向，但主语位置的“only”会增加对主语的解读。如果前文语境为焦点小品词提供了另一个原因，那么它就不再预示即将出现的对比。在包括间接疑问句在内的偏向性语境中，当“only”标记回答问题的论据时没有促进作用，而在另一个论据上的“only”则会减缓处理速度。“only”和语境都会影响解读。结果表明，焦点小品词和疑问句都可以在在线和离线状态下影响对即将出现的对比的处理。
