ERIC Number: EJ730553
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004
Pages: 13
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0093-934X
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The Effect of Context on the Processing of Type-Shifting Verbs
de Almeida, Roberto G.
Brain and Language, v90 n1-3 p249-261 Jul-Sep 2004
Recent research in lexical semantics has suggested that verbs such as begin and enjoy semantically select for a complement that denotes an activity or an event. When no such activity or event is specified in the form of a progressive or infinitival complement, as in John began (to read/reading) the book, the verb is said to ''coerce'' the NP direct object to shift its role to encompass the activity that begin requires as complement (e.g., writing, reading). Empirical support for this view has been provided by McElree, Traxler, Pickering, Seely, & Jackendoff (2001). In the present study, however, in two self-paced reading experiments, type-shifting effects (taken to be longer reading times engendered by the computation of the coercion process) were not obtained with sentences in isolation (Experiment 1) or with sentences embedded in contexts that specified the nature of the activity performed over the complement NP (Experiment 2). It is argued that type-shifting verbs are similar to non-preferred verbs for given contexts and that type-shifting operations are pragmatic inferences computed over underspecified semantic representations.
Descriptors: Verbs, Semantics, Pragmatics, Inferences, Experiments, Context Effect, Sentences, Reading Processes
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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