SFB 1287 Limits of Variability in Language, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
PLoS One. 2021 May 11;16(5):e0251280. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251280. eCollection 2021.
People perceive sentences more favourably after hearing or reading them many times. A prominent approach in linguistic theory argues that these types of exposure effects (satiation effects) show direct evidence of a generative approach to linguistic knowledge: only some sentences improve under repeated exposure, and which sentences do improve can be predicted by a model of linguistic competence that yields natural syntactic classes. However, replications of the original findings have been inconsistent, and it remains unclear whether satiation effects can be reliably induced in an experimental setting at all. Here we report four findings regarding satiation effects in wh-questions across German and English. First, the effects pertain to zone of well-formedness rather than syntactic class: all intermediate ratings, including calibrated fillers, increase at the beginning of the experimental session regardless of syntactic construction. Second, though there is satiation, ratings asymptote below maximum acceptability. Third, these effects are consistent across judgments of superiority effects in English and German. Fourth, wh-questions appear to show similar profiles in English and German, despite these languages being traditionally considered to differ strongly in whether they show effects on movement: violations of the superiority condition can be modulated to a similar degree in both languages by manipulating subject-object initiality and animacy congruency of the wh-phrase. We improve on classic satiation methods by distinguishing between two crucial tests, namely whether exposure selectively targets certain grammatical constructions or whether there is a general repeated exposure effect. We conclude that exposure effects can be reliably induced in rating experiments but exposure does not appear to selectively target certain grammatical constructions. Instead, they appear to be a phenomenon of intermediate gradient judgments.
人们在多次听到或读到一个句子后会对其评价更为积极。语言理论中的一个主流观点认为，这类曝光效应（饱厌效应）直接证明了一种生成性的语言知识获取方式：只有某些句子在重复接触后会得到改善，而哪些句子会得到改善可以通过一个生成式语言能力模型来预测，该模型会产生自然的句法类别。然而，原始发现的重复结果并不一致，而且目前仍不清楚在实验环境中是否真的能可靠地产生饱厌效应。在这里，我们报告了关于德语和英语中 wh-疑问句的饱厌效应的四项发现。首先，这些效应与可接受的范围有关，而不是与句法类别有关：在实验开始时，所有中间的评价，包括校准的填充词，都会增加，而不管句法结构如何。其次，尽管有饱厌效应，但评价的极限值低于最大可接受度。第三，这些效应在英语和德语的优越性判断中是一致的。第四，尽管这些语言在是否表现出对移动的影响方面被传统上认为存在很大的差异，但 wh-疑问句在英语和德语中似乎表现出相似的模式：通过操纵 wh-短语的主语-宾语初始性和动物一致性，可以在两种语言中以相似的程度调节对优越性条件的违反。我们通过区分两个关键测试来改进经典的饱厌方法，即暴露是否有选择性地针对某些语法结构，或者是否存在普遍的重复暴露效应。我们的结论是，暴露效应可以在评价实验中可靠地产生，但暴露似乎并没有有选择性地针对某些语法结构。相反，它们似乎是中间梯度判断的一种现象。
