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Processing and domain selection: Quantificational variability effects.

Jesse A Harris1, Charles Clifton2, Lyn Frazier1

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Readers prefer interpreting sentences with quantifiers like "mostly" as referring to parts rather than times. This preference is linked to a conceptual economy principle, avoiding unnecessary temporal postulations.

Keywords:
adverbs of quantificationeye movement recordingquantificational variabilitysemantic processingtemporal structure

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • Sentences with quantifiers like "mostly" can be ambiguous, allowing interpretation over individuals/parts or times.
  • Previous research suggests a preference for certain interpretations, but the underlying mechanisms are debated.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate readers' default assumptions about quantificational domains.
  • To test the hypothesis that conceptual economy (No Extra Times principle) influences sentence interpretation.
  • To determine if a preference for part-based quantification is lexical or domain-based.

Main Methods:

  • Experiment 1: Rated naturalness of part vs. time interpretations.
  • Experiment 2: Used questionnaires to eliminate temporal postulation bias.
  • Experiment 3: Employed eye-tracking to measure reading difficulty.

Main Results:

  • Readers found part-based quantification more natural than time-based quantification (Experiment 1).
  • This preference was not reducible to a lexical bias of "mostly" (Experiment 2).
  • Reading times increased when sentences forced a time-based interpretation, suggesting processing difficulty (Experiment 3).

Conclusions:

  • Readers default to interpretations that minimize temporal postulations, supporting the conceptual economy principle.
  • Sentence processing is influenced by readers' assumptions about temporal properties.
  • Understanding domain selection for quantifiers is crucial for sentence processing research.