Institute of English Studies, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.
J Psycholinguist Res. 2020 Oct;49(5):741-760. doi: 10.1007/s10936-020-09706-7.
The number meaning of grammatically plural nouns is to some extent context sensitive. In negative sentences, plural nouns typically receive an inclusive reading referring to any number of individuals (one or many). This contrasts with their more frequent exclusive reading referring to a group of two or more individuals. The present study investigated whether a plural noun in a negative sentence is treated as inclusive immediately when it is encountered or whether this interpretation is delayed. In an experiment using a technique based on a numerical variant of the Stroop effect (Berent et al. in J Mem Lang 53:342-358, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2005.05.002 ; Patson and Warren in J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 36(3):782-789, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018783 ), participants counted visually presented singular and plural Polish nouns embedded in either affirmative or negative sentences. The nouns were displayed once or as two copies. Plural nouns were easier to count when they were repeated twice on the screen than when only one copy was displayed. For singular nouns this pattern was reversed and the effect was weaker. Crucially, no difference was found for plural nouns appearing in affirmative and negative sentences. This indicated that an inclusive ("one or more") reading of plural nouns in the scope of sentential negation was not immediate. The results are in line with past research suggesting that the semantic processing of a negative sentence may proceed in two phases (Fischler et al. in Psychophysiology 20(4):400-409, 1983. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1983.tb00920.x ; Kaup et al. in J Pragmat 38:1033-1050, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.012 ; Lüdtke et al. in J Cogn Neurosci 20(8):1355-1370, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2008.20093 ; Spychalska in Proceedings of the 2011 ESSLLI student session, 2011).
语法上复数名词的数量意义在某种程度上是上下文敏感的。在否定句中，复数名词通常具有包含性的解读，指的是任意数量的个体（一个或多个）。这与它们更常见的排他性解读形成对比，排他性解读指的是两个或更多个体的群体。本研究调查了否定句中的复数名词在遇到时是否立即被视为包含性的，或者这种解释是否会延迟。在一项基于数字变体斯特鲁普效应的实验中（Berent 等人，在 J Mem Lang 53:342-358, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2005.05.002; Patson 和 Warren 在 J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 36(3):782-789, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018783），参与者在肯定或否定句中计数视觉呈现的单数和复数波兰名词。名词只显示一次或两次。当屏幕上重复两次显示复数名词时，它们更容易被计数，而当只显示一个副本时，情况则相反。对于单数名词，这种模式是相反的，并且效果较弱。至关重要的是，在肯定和否定句中出现的复数名词之间没有发现差异。这表明对否定句范围内的复数名词的包容性（“一个或多个”）解读不是即时的。结果与过去的研究一致，表明否定句的语义处理可能分两个阶段进行（Fischler 等人，在 Psychophysiology 20(4):400-409, 1983. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1983.tb00920.x; Kaup 等人，在 J Pragmat 38:1033-1050, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.012; Lüdtke 等人，在 J Cogn Neurosci 20(8):1355-1370, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2008.20093; Spychalska 在 Proceedings of the 2011 ESSLLI student session, 2011）。
