Logical connectives in natural language pose challenges to truth-conditional semantics due to pragmatics and gradience in their meaning. This paper reports on a case study of the conditional ...connectives (CCs)
wenn/falls
‘if/when, if/in case’ in German. Using distributional evidence, I argue that
wenn
and
falls
differ in lexical pragmatics: They express different degrees of speaker commitment (i.e., credence) toward the modified antecedent proposition at the non-at-issue dimension. This contrast can be modeled using the speaker commitment scale (
Giannakidou and Mari, 2016
), i.e.,
More committed
<WENN p, FALLS p>
Less committed
. Four experiments are reported which tested the
wenn/falls
contrast, as well as the summary of an additional one from
Liu (2019)
. Experiment 1 tested the naturalness of sentences containing the CCs (
wenn
or
falls
) and conditional antecedents with varying degrees of likelihood (very likely/likely/unlikely). The starting prediction was that
falls
might be degraded in combination with very likely and likely events in comparison to the other conditions, which was not borne out. Experiment 2 used the forced lexical choice paradigm, testing the choice between
wenn
and
falls
in the doxastic agent’s conditional thought, depending on their belief or disbelief in the antecedent. The finding was that subjects chose
falls
significantly more often than
wenn
in the disbelief-context, and vice versa in the belief-context. Experiment 3 tested the naturalness of sentences with CCs and an additional relative clause conveying the speaker’s belief or disbelief in the antecedent. An interaction was found: While in the belief-context,
wenn
was rated more natural than
falls
, the reverse pattern was found in the disbelief-context. While the results are mixed, the combination of the findings in Experiment 2, Experiment 3 and that of Experiment 4a from
Liu (2019)
that
falls
led to lower speaker commitment ratings than
wenn
, provide evidence for the CC scale. Experiment 4b tested the interaction between two speaker commitment scales, namely, one of connectives (including
weil
‘because’ and
wenn/falls
) and the other of adverbs (factive vs. non-factive,
Liu, 2012
). While factive and non-factive adverbs were rated equally natural for the factive causal connective, non-factive adverbs were preferred over factive ones by both CCs, with no difference between
wenn
and
falls
. This is discussed together with the result in
Liu (2019)
, where the
wenn/falls
difference occurred in the absence of negative polarity items (NPIs), but disappeared in the presence of NPIs. This raises further questions on how different speaker commitment scales interact and why.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is highly transmitted through the respiratory route, but potential extra-respiratory routes of SARS-CoV-2 transmission remain uncertain. ...Here we inoculated five rhesus macaques with 1 × 10
TCID
of SARS-CoV-2 conjunctivally (CJ), intratracheally (IT), and intragastrically (IG). Nasal and throat swabs collected from CJ and IT had detectable viral RNA at 1-7 days post-inoculation (dpi). Viral RNA was detected in anal swabs from only the IT group at 1-7 dpi. Viral RNA was undetectable in tested swabs and tissues after intragastric inoculation. The CJ infected animal had a higher viral load in the nasolacrimal system than the IT infected animal but also showed mild interstitial pneumonia, suggesting distinct virus distributions. This study shows that infection via the conjunctival route is possible in non-human primates; further studies are necessary to compare the relative risk and pathogenesis of infection through these different routes in more detail.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by infection with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has become a global pandemic. It is unclear whether ...convalescing patients have a risk of reinfection. We generated a rhesus macaque model of SARS-CoV-2 infection that was characterized by interstitial pneumonia and systemic viral dissemination mainly in the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Rhesus macaques reinfected with the identical SARS-CoV-2 strain during the early recovery phase of the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection did not show detectable viral dissemination, clinical manifestations of viral disease, or histopathological changes. Comparing the humoral and cellular immunity between primary infection and rechallenge revealed notably enhanced neutralizing antibody and immune responses. Our results suggest that primary SARS-CoV-2 exposure protects against subsequent reinfection in rhesus macaques.
In this paper, the meaning and processing of the German conditional connectives (CCs) such as
wenn
‘if’ and
nur wenn
‘only if’ are investigated. In Experiment 1, participants read short scenarios ...containing a conditional sentence (i.e., If P, Q.) with
wenn/nur wenn
‘if/only if’ and a confirmed or negated antecedent (i.e., P/not-P), and subsequently completed the final sentence about Q (with or without negation). In Experiment 2, participants rated the truth or falsity of the consequent Q after reading a conditional sentence with
wenn
or
nur wenn
and a confirmed or negated antecedent (i.e., If P, Q. P/not-P. // Therefore, Q?). Both experiments showed that neither
wenn
nor
nur wenn
were interpreted as biconditional CCs. Modus Ponens (If P, Q. P. // Therefore, Q) was validated for
wenn
, whereas it was not validated in the case of
nur wenn
. While Denial of the Antecedent (If P, Q. not-P. // Therefore, not-Q.) was validated in the case of
nur wenn
, it was not validated for
wenn
. The same method was used to test
wenn
vs.
unter der Bedingung, dass
‘on condition that’ in Experiment 3, and
wenn
vs.
vorausgesetzt, dass
‘provided that’ in Experiment 4. Experiment 5, using Affirmation of the Consequent (If P, Q. Q. // Therefore, P.) to test
wenn
vs.
nur wenn
replicated the results of Experiment 2. Taken together, the results show that in German,
unter der Bedingung, dass
is the most likely candidate of biconditional CCs whereas all others are not biconditional. The findings, in particular of
nur wenn
not being semantically biconditional, are discussed based on available formal analyses of conditionals.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the cause of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has become a public health emergency of international concern
. ...Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the cell-entry receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)
. Here we infected transgenic mice that express human ACE2 (hereafter, hACE2 mice) with SARS-CoV-2 and studied the pathogenicity of the virus. We observed weight loss as well as virus replication in the lungs of hACE2 mice infected with SARS-CoV-2. The typical histopathology was interstitial pneumonia with infiltration of considerable numbers of macrophages and lymphocytes into the alveolar interstitium, and the accumulation of macrophages in alveolar cavities. We observed viral antigens in bronchial epithelial cells, macrophages and alveolar epithelia. These phenomena were not found in wild-type mice infected with SARS-CoV-2. Notably, we have confirmed the pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 in hACE2 mice. This mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection will be valuable for evaluating antiviral therapeutic agents and vaccines, as well as understanding the pathogenesis of COVID-19.
Both indicative and counterfactual conditionals are known to be licensing contexts for negative polarity items (NPIs). However, a recent theoretical account suggests that the licensing of attenuating ...NPIs like English
all that
in the conditional antecedent is sensitive to pragmatic differences between various types of conditionals. We conducted three behavioral experiments in order to test key predictions made by that proposal. In Experiment 1, we tested hypothetical indicative and counterfactual conditionals with the English NPI
all that
, finding that the NPI is degraded in the former compared to the latter. In Experiment 2, we compared hypothetical indicative conditionals and premise conditionals with the same NPI, again finding a degradation only for the former. Both results align with theoretically derived predictions purporting that hypothetical indicative conditionals are degraded due to their susceptibility to conditional perfection. Finally, Experiment 3 provides empirical evidence that comprehenders readily strengthen counterfactual conditionals to biconditionals, in line with theoretical analyses that assume that conditional perfection and counterfactual inferences are compatible. Their ability to still host attenuating NPIs in the conditional antecedent, by contrast, falls into place
via
the antiveridical inference to the falsity of the antecedent. Altogether, our study sheds light on the interplay between NPI licensing and the semantic and pragmatic properties of various types of conditionals. Moreover, it provides a novel perspective on the processing of different kinds of conditionals in context, in particular, with regard to their (non)veridicality properties.
The concept of bias is familiar to linguists primarily from the literature on questions. Following the work of Giannakidou and Mari (Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought: Modality, Mood, and ...Propositional Attitudes, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2021), we assume “nonveridical equilibrium” (implying that
p
and
¬p
as equal possibilities) to be the default for epistemic modals, questions and conditionals. The equilibrium of conditionals, as that of questions, can be manipulated to produce bias (i.e., reduced or higher
speaker commitment
). In this paper, we focus on three kinds of modal elements in German that create bias in conditionals and questions: the adverb
wirklich
‘really’, the modal verb
sollte
‘should’, and conditional connectives such as
falls
‘if/in case’. We conducted two experiments collecting participants’ inference about speaker commitment in different manipulations, Experiment 1 on
sollte/wirklich
in
ob-
questions and
wenn-
conditionals, and Experiment 2 on
sollte/wirklich
in
wenn/falls/
V1-conditionals. Our findings are that both
ob-
questions and
falls-
conditionals express reduced speaker commitment about the modified (antecedent) proposition in comparison to
wenn-
conditionals, which did not differ from V1
-
conditionals. In addition,
sollte/wirklich
in the antecedent of conditionals both create negative bias about the antecedent proposition. Our studies are among the first that deal with bias in conditionals (in comparison to questions) and contribute to furthering our understanding of bias.
Human emotions can be complex to interpret as they have multiple sources and are often times ambiguous, for example, when the signals sent by different channels of communication are inconsistent. Our ...study investigates the interaction of linguistic and facial expressions of emotions.
In two experiments, participants read short scenarios in German containing a direct utterance with positive or negative emotive markers, in combination with different facial expressions as still images of the speaker (i.e., the protagonist in the story). They answered questions about their perception regarding the intensity of the emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness), the properties of the expresser (e.g., honesty, warmth, likeability) and their relation to the addressee (e.g., closeness), as well as the expresser intention (e.g., irony, joke).
The findings suggest that facial expressions have a more dominant role in the emotion perception in comparison to emotive markers. Furthermore, consistent and inconsistent combinations of emotive markers and facial expressions convey distinct social meanings and communicative intentions.
This research points to the importance to consider emotive markers in the emotional context that they occur in.
Negation is a universal component of human language; polarity sensitivity (i.e., lexical distributional constraints in relation to negation) is arguably so while being pervasive across languages. ...Negation has long been a field of inquiry in psychological theories and experiments of reasoning, which inspired many follow-up studies of negation and negation-related phenomena in psycholinguistics. In generative theoretical linguistics, negation and polarity sensitivity have been extensively studied, as the related phenomena are situated at the interfaces of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, and are thus extremely revealing about the architecture of grammar. With the now long tradition of research on negation and polarity in psychology and psycholinguistics, and the emerging field of experimental semantics and pragmatics, a multitude of interests and experimental paradigms have emerged which call for re-evaluations and further development and integration. This special issue contains a collection of 16 research articles on the processing of negation and negation-related phenomena including polarity items, questions, conditionals, and irony, using a combination of behavioral (e.g., rating, reading, eye-tracking and sentence completion) and neuroimaging techniques (e.g., EEG). They showcase the processing of negation and polarity with or without context, in various languages and across different populations (adults, typically developing and ADHD children). The integration of multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives in this collection provides new insights, methodological advances and directions for future research.
Background
Since December 2019, an outbreak of the Corona Virus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS‐CoV‐2) in Wuhan, China, has become a public ...health emergency of international concern. The high fatality of aged cases caused by SARS‐CoV‐2 was a need to explore the possible age‐related phenomena with non‐human primate models.
Methods
Three 3‐5 years old and two 15 years old rhesus macaques were intratracheally infected with SARS‐CoV‐2, and then analyzed by clinical signs, viral replication, chest X‐ray, histopathological changes and immune response.
Results
Viral replication of nasopharyngeal swabs, anal swabs and lung in old monkeys was more active than that in young monkeys for 14 days after SARS‐CoV‐2 challenge. Monkeys developed typical interstitial pneumonia characterized by thickened alveolar septum accompanied with inflammation and edema, notably, old monkeys exhibited diffuse severe interstitial pneumonia. Viral antigens were detected mainly in alveolar epithelial cells and macrophages.
Conclusion
SARS‐CoV‐2 caused more severe interstitial pneumonia in old monkeys than that in young monkeys. Rhesus macaque models infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 provided insight into the pathogenic mechanism and facilitated the development of vaccines and therapeutics against SARS‐CoV‐2 infection.
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