Knowlton Tyler, Trueswell John, Papafragou Anna
MindCORE, University of Pennsylvania, 3740 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 425 South University Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Cogn Psychol. 2023 Aug;144:101584. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101584. Epub 2023 Jul 3.
A complete theory of the meaning of linguistic expressions needs to explain their semantic properties, their links to non-linguistic cognition, and their use in communication. Even though in principle interconnected, these areas are generally not pursued in tandem. We present a novel take on the semantics-cognition-pragmatics interface. We propose that formal semantic differences in expressions' meanings lead those meanings to activate distinct cognitive systems, which in turn have downstream effects on when speakers prefer to use those expressions. As a case study, we focus on the quantifiers "each" and "every", which can be used to talk about the same state of the world, but have been argued to differ in meaning. In particular, we adopt a mentalistic proposal about these quantifiers on which "each" has a purely individualistic meaning that interfaces with the psychological system for representing object-files, whereas "every" has a meaning that implicates a group and interfaces with the psychological system for representing ensembles. In seven experiments, we demonstrate that this account correctly predicts both known and newly-observed constraints on how "each" and "every" are pragmatically used. More generally, this integrated approach to semantics, cognition, and pragmatics suggests that canonical patterns of language use can be affected in predictable ways by fine-grained differences in semantic meanings and the cognitive systems to which those meanings connect.
一套完整的语言表达意义理论需要解释其语义属性、与非语言认知的联系以及在交流中的运用。尽管这些领域在原则上相互关联，但通常并非同时进行研究。我们提出了一种关于语义学 - 认知 - 语用学界面的全新观点。我们认为，表达式意义上的形式语义差异会导致这些意义激活不同的认知系统，进而对说话者何时更倾向于使用这些表达式产生下游影响。作为一个案例研究，我们聚焦于量词“each”和“every”，它们可用于描述相同的世界状态，但人们认为它们在意义上存在差异。具体而言，我们采用了一种关于这些量词的心理主义观点，即“each”具有纯粹个体主义的意义，它与用于表示对象文件的心理系统相互作用，而“every”的意义涉及一个群体，并且与用于表示集合的心理系统相互作用。在七个实验中，我们证明了这种解释正确地预测了关于“each”和“every”语用使用的已知和新观察到的限制。更一般地说，这种语义学、认知和语用学的综合方法表明，语义意义的细微差异以及这些意义所连接的认知系统能够以可预测的方式影响语言使用的典型模式。
