Kronmüller Edmundo, Noveck Ira
Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Institut des Sciences Cognitives - Marc Jeannerod (UMR 5304), Lyon, France.
Front Psychol. 2019 Jul 3;10:1461. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01461. eCollection 2019.
A negative reference, such as "not the sculpture" (where is a name the speaker had only just invented to describe an unconventional-looking object and where the negation is saying that she does not currently desire that object), seems like a perilous and linguistically underdetermined way to point to another object, especially when there are three objects to choose from. To succeed, it obliges listeners to rely on contextual elements to determine which object the speaker has in mind. Prior work has shown that pragmatic inference-making plays a crucial role in such an interpretation process. When a negative reference leaves two candidate objects to choose from, listeners avoid an object that had been previously named, preferring instead an unconventional-looking object that had remained unnamed (Kronmüller et al., 2017). In the present study, we build over these findings by maintaining our focus on the two remaining objects (what we call the and objects) as we systematically vary two features. With respect to the second object - which is always unconventional looking - we vary whether or not it has been given a name. With respect to the third object - which is never named - we vary whether it is unconventional or conventional looking (for the latter, imagine an object that clearly resembles a bicycle). As revealed by selection patterns and eye-movements in a visual-world eye-tracking paradigm, we replicate our previous findings that show that participants choose randomly when both of the remaining objects are unconventional looking and unnamed and that they opt reliably in favor of the most nondescript (the unnamed unconventional looking) object when the second object is named. We show further that (unnamed) conventional-looking objects provide similar outcomes when juxtaposed with an unnamed unconventional object (participants prefer the most non-descript as opposed to the conventional-looking object). Nevertheless, effects emerging from the conventional (unnamed) case are not as strong as those found with respect to those reported when an unconventional object is named. In describing participants' choices in the non-random cases, we propose that addressees rely on the construction of an implicature that takes into account which object can be eliminated from consideration, given that the speaker did not explicitly name it.
一个否定性指称，比如“不是那个雕塑”（其中 是说话者刚刚创造出来描述一个长相奇特的物体的名称，否定词表示她当前不想要那个物体），似乎是一种危险且在语言上不确定的指向另一个物体的方式，尤其是当有三个物体可供选择时。为了成功做到这一点，它迫使听众依靠上下文元素来确定说话者心中所想的是哪个物体。先前的研究表明，语用推理在这样的解释过程中起着关键作用。当一个否定性指称留下两个候选物体供选择时，听众会避开之前被命名过的物体，而更倾向于一个长相奇特且尚未被命名的物体（克伦米勒等人，2017）。在本研究中，我们基于这些发现展开，通过在系统地改变两个特征时，持续关注剩下的两个物体（我们称之为 和 物体）。对于第二个物体——它总是长相奇特——我们改变它是否被赋予了一个名称。对于第三个物体——它从未被命名——我们改变它是长相奇特还是普通（对于后者，可以想象一个明显类似自行车的物体）。正如在视觉世界眼动追踪范式中的选择模式和眼动所揭示的那样，我们重复了我们之前的发现，即当剩下的两个物体都长相奇特且未被命名时，参与者随机选择，而当第二个物体被命名时，他们可靠地选择最没有明显特征（未被命名且长相奇特）的物体。我们进一步表明，（未被命名的）普通长相的物体与未被命名的长相奇特的物体并列时会产生类似的结果（参与者更喜欢最没有明显特征的物体而非普通长相的物体）。然而，普通（未被命名的）情况产生的效果不如当一个长相奇特的物体被命名时所报告的效果那么强烈。在描述非随机情况下参与者的选择时，我们提出收件人依赖于一种 含义的构建，这种构建考虑到了鉴于说话者没有明确命名哪个物体，哪些物体可以从考虑中被排除。
