Yang Xiao, Minai Utako, Fiorentino Robert
Neurolinguistics and Language Processing Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States.
Developmental Psycholinguistics Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States.
Front Psychol. 2018 Sep 20;9:1720. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01720. eCollection 2018.
The derivation of scalar implicatures for the quantifier has been widely studied to investigate the computation of pragmatically enriched meanings. For example, the sentence "I found some books" carries the semantic interpretation that at least one book was found, but its interpretation is often enriched to include the implicature that not all the books were found. The implicature is argued to be more likely to arise when it is relevant for addressing a question under discussion (QUD) in the context, e.g., when "I found some books" is uttered in response to "Did you find all the books?" as opposed to "Did you find any books?". However, most experimental studies have not examined the influence of context on , instead testing sentences in isolation. Moreover, no study to our knowledge has examined individual differences in the ability to utilize context in interpreting , whereas individual variation in deriving implicatures for sentences in isolation is widely attested, with alternative proposals attributing this variation to individual differences in cognitive resources (e.g., working memory) or personality-based pragmatic abilities (e.g., as assessed by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient). The current study examined how context influences the interpretation of in a story-sentence matching task, where participants rated statements ("I cut some steaks") uttered by one character, in response to another character's question (QUD) that established the implicature as relevant ("Did you cut all the steaks?") or irrelevant ("Did you cut any steaks?"). We also examined to what extent individuals' sensitivity to QUD is modulated by individual differences via a battery of measures assessing cognitive resources, personality-based pragmatic abilities, and language abilities (which have been argued to modulate comprehension in other domains). Our results demonstrate that QUD affects the interpretation of , and reveal that individual differences in sensitivity to QUD are modulated by both cognitive resources and personality-based pragmatic abilities. While previous studies have argued alternatively for cognitive resources or personality-based pragmatic abilities as important for deriving implicatures for in isolation, we argue that arriving at a context-sensitive interpretation for depends on both cognitive and personality-based properties of the individual.
量词的标量含义推导已得到广泛研究，以探究语用丰富意义的计算。例如，句子“我找到一些书”的语义解释是至少找到一本书，但它的解释通常会丰富到包含“并非所有书都被找到”的含义。当该含义与语境中正在讨论的问题（QUD）相关时，就更有可能出现，例如，当“我找到一些书”是对“你找到所有的书了吗？”的回应，而不是对“你找到任何书了吗？”的回应时。然而，大多数实验研究并未考察语境对量词的影响，而是孤立地测试量词句子。此外，据我们所知，没有研究考察个体在利用语境解释量词方面的差异，而孤立地推导量词句子含义时的个体差异已得到广泛证实，不同的观点将这种差异归因于认知资源（如工作记忆）或基于个性的语用能力（如通过自闭症谱系商数评估）的个体差异。本研究在一个故事 - 句子匹配任务中考察了语境如何影响量词的解释，在该任务中，参与者对一个角色说出的量词陈述（“我切了一些牛排”）进行评分，以回应另一个角色提出的使该含义相关（“你切了所有的牛排吗？”）或不相关（“你切了任何牛排吗？”）的问题（QUD）。我们还通过一系列评估认知资源、基于个性的语用能力和语言能力的测量方法，考察了个体对QUD的敏感性在多大程度上受到个体差异的调节（有人认为这些能力在其他领域会调节理解）。我们的结果表明，QUD会影响量词的解释，并揭示出对QUD敏感性的个体差异受到认知资源和基于个性的语用能力两者的调节。虽然先前的研究交替认为认知资源或基于个性的语用能力对于孤立地推导量词含义很重要，但我们认为，对量词进行语境敏感的解释取决于个体的认知和基于个性的属性。
