Ambiguity in Linguistics tuny, Jordi; Payrató, Lluís
Studia linguistica,
04/2024, Letnik:
78, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Ambiguity is conventionally defined in Linguistics as a property of a word or an utterance that has two meanings or two interpretations, and is usually classified as lexical, morphological, syntactic ...(or structural), and pragmatic.Giving an adequate definition of linguistic ambiguity is not trivial, nor is there unanimity in accepting it. Most researchers tend to agree that ambiguity should be distinguished from related concepts such as vagueness, context sensitivity, reference transfer, and underdetermination or generality of meaning. The distinction between these concepts is also related to the divergences or connections between the perspectives of analysis of ambiguity, and the aim of each work.In this introduction, we define the limits of ambiguity with respect to related concepts and summarize the studies contained within this special issue. These studies do not cover all possible approaches to linguistic ambiguity, but provide a broad overview that can be useful in different fields. We trust that they will contribute to deepening into a phenomenon that is not yet well described and that seems to be consubstantial with the use of language.
•73 papers on syntactic priming in production are meta-analyzed.•The priming effect is robust, with a large effect of lexical overlap.•Studies that investigate moderators of priming are ...underpowered.•We do not find evidence of p-hacking in the syntactic priming literature.
We performed an exhaustive meta-analysis of 73 peer-reviewed journal articles on syntactic priming from the seminal Bock (1986) paper through 2013. Extracting the effect size for each experiment and condition, where the effect size is the log odds ratio of the frequency of the primed structure X to the frequency of the unprimed structure Y, we found a robust effect of syntactic priming with an average weighted odds ratio of 1.67 when there is no lexical overlap and 3.26 when there is. That is, a construction X which occurs 50% of the time in the absence of priming would occur 63% if primed without lexical repetition and 77% of the time if primed with lexical repetition. The syntactic priming effect is robust across several different construction types and languages, and we found strong effects of lexical overlap on the size of the priming effect as well as interactions between lexical repetition and temporal lag and between lexical repetition and whether the priming occurred within or across languages. We also analyzed the distribution of p-values across experiments in order to estimate the average statistical power of experiments in our sample and to assess publication bias. Analyzing a subset of experiments in which the primary result of interest is whether a particular structure showed a priming effect, we did not find evidence of major p-hacking and the studies appear to have acceptable statistical power: 82%. However, analyzing a subset of experiments that focus not just on whether syntactic priming exists but on how syntactic priming is moderated by other variables (such as repetition of words in prime and target, the location of the testing room, and the memory of the speaker), we found that such studies are, on average, underpowered with estimated average power of 53%. Using a subset of 45 papers from our sample for which we received raw data, we estimated subject and item variation and give recommendations for appropriate sample size for future syntactic priming studies.
In this paper, I argue that content of some presuppositions is determined dynamically. In particular, it is shown that the presupposition of want in control constructions depends on the ...interpretation of an action in the complement clause. Different presuppositional content of sentences with want is argued for using new and known observations about licensing of Polarity Sensitive Items. I propose to capture the dynamic nature of the presupposition of want using the AGM paradigm for belief revision (Alchourrán, Gärdenfors & Makinson 1985). Finally, I show that sensitivity to the interpretation of an action as intentional versus accidental is not specific to polarity system, but can be found across different domains of the grammar in many unrelated languages.
The main aim of this article is to examine what is commonly known in the grammar and linguistic literature "inverse subordinate", which is realized in Amazigh (Berber of Morocco) by means of the ...functional s (iɣ/lliɣ). The study is part of our typological centred on the classification of the circumstantial subordinate clauses of Amazigh. Based on a critical retrospective, we shed light on the categorical status of the functional s (iɣ/lliɣ), to then describe the syntactic properties of s + constructions. The tests used reveal that these are ungoverned constructions, more autonomous, as opposed to the ruled canonical subordinate clauses introduced by lliɣ or kudnna "when".
Cette étude se situe à l’interface entre l’analyse du discours, la pragmatique et la syntaxe. Elle a pour objectif de montrer l’existence de multiples interprétations du signifiant linguistique dans ...les slogans. L’analyse des slogans dans notre étude fait ressortir d’une part, le caractère intensif des structures lexico-syntaxiques partagées par les slogans relevant de la publicité verte et sociale, et d’autre part, l’existence du potentiel interprétatif du signifiant linguistique, en corrélation avec le signifiant iconique dans les slogans. Outre la modalité, le choix de certains éléments linguistiques ainsi que les effacements en surface sont source d’implicite et font émerger l’apparition de sens multiples, et donc de la face cachée du slogan, comparable à celle d’un iceberg.
Prospective (also known as proximative, imminent or pre-inchoative) aspect presents some subsequent situation as imminent while underspecifying its realization. An English example is be about to, as ...in ‘I am about to leave’. Dutch has several expressions tied to this semantics, including op het punt staan ‘lit. stand on the point: be about to’. This squib presents the first exploration of this type of viewpoint aspect in Dutch. Drawing on corpus data, I show that there are at least six prospective patterns in Dutch, and discuss (i) the source structures their prospective meaning derives from, (ii) the restrictions they impose on their complement, and (iii) their interaction with the perfect.
Starting out from a critical questioning of Construction Grammar’s basic tenets I am advocating a version of Construction Grammar that should be primarily understood as based on the patterns evinced ...by grammatical operations. This approach aims for a theory of rule-governed operations over constructions and not for a theory of idiomaticity and non-(or restricted) compositionality.
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