Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, 0313 Oslo, Norway;
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Jun 16;117(24):13399-13404. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1922067117. Epub 2020 Jun 1.
To correctly interpret a message, people must attend to the context in which it was produced. Here we investigate how this process, known as pragmatic reasoning, is guided by two universal forces in human communication: incrementality and efficiency, with speakers of all languages interpreting language incrementally and making the most efficient use of the incoming information. Crucially, however, the interplay between these two forces results in speakers of different languages having different pragmatic information available at each point in processing, including inferences about speaker intentions. In particular, the position of adjectives relative to nouns (e.g., "black lamp" vs. "lamp black") makes visual context information available in reverse orders. In an eye-tracking study comparing four unrelated languages that have been understudied with regard to language processing (Catalan, Hindi, Hungarian, and Wolof), we show that speakers of languages with an adjective-noun order integrate context by first identifying properties (e.g., color, material, or size), whereas speakers of languages with a noun-adjective order integrate context by first identifying kinds (e.g., lamps or chairs). Most notably, this difference allows listeners of adjective-noun descriptions to infer the speaker's intention when using an adjective (e.g., "the black…" as implying "not the blue one") and anticipate the target referent, whereas listeners of noun-adjective descriptions are subject to temporary ambiguity when deriving the same interpretation. We conclude that incrementality and efficiency guide pragmatic reasoning across languages, with different word orders having different pragmatic affordances.
为了正确理解信息，人们必须关注信息产生的语境。在这里，我们研究了这一过程，即所谓的语用推理，是如何受到人类交流中两种普遍力量的指导的：增量和效率，所有语言的说话者都以增量的方式解释语言，并最大限度地利用输入的信息。然而，至关重要的是，这两种力量的相互作用导致不同语言的说话者在处理过程中的每一点都有不同的语用信息可用，包括对说话者意图的推断。特别是，形容词相对于名词的位置（例如，“黑灯”与“灯黑”）使得视觉上下文信息以相反的顺序可用。在一项比较四种语言处理研究较少的语言（加泰罗尼亚语、印地语、匈牙利语和沃洛夫语）的眼动追踪研究中，我们表明，形容词-名词语序的语言的说话者通过首先识别属性（例如颜色、材料或大小）来整合语境，而名词-形容词语序的语言的说话者通过首先识别种类（例如灯或椅子）来整合语境。最值得注意的是，这种差异使得形容词-名词描述的听者可以在使用形容词时推断说话者的意图（例如，“黑色的……”暗示“不是蓝色的那个”），并预测目标指代，而名词-形容词描述的听者在得出相同解释时则会受到暂时的歧义的影响。我们得出的结论是，增量和效率指导着跨语言的语用推理，不同的词序具有不同的语用优势。
