Abstract (may include machine translation)
Language is characterised by broad and predictable mappings between meaning and syntactic form. Transitive sentences typically encode two-participant events while ditransitives typically encode three-participant events. Lightverb constructions, however, systematically violate these mappings; for example, some have ditransitive syntax (‘Romeo is giving Juliet a kiss’) but describe what appear to be agent[1]patient events (Romeo kissing Juliet). We used a conceptual sorting task to explore whether this non-canonical mapping influenced the interpretation of these sentences. Participants were trained to sort events by the number of thematic roles they encoded. After a training phase with only pictures, they sorted a mix of pictures and written sentences, including transitive agent-patient sentences, ditransitive source-theme-goal sentences and ditransitive light-verb constructions. Events described by light-verb constructions were most often grouped with agent-patient events but were sometimes grouped with source-theme-goal events. A control condition using the transitive/intransitive alternation for joint action verbs (e.g., ‘meet’) demonstrates that this is not attributable to misconstruing the task as syntactic sorting. We conclude that non-canonical mappings between meaning and form can affect event construal, but syntactic form does not solely determine the construal that is chosen.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 635-641 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Language, Cognition and Neuroscience |
Volume | 29 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Argument structure
- Conceptualization
- Events
- Light-verb constructions
- Semantics
- Sorting task
- Syntax