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Priming semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese

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Abstract

Structural priming, the tendency for speakers to reuse previously encountered sentence structures, provides some of the strongest evidence for the existence of abstract structural representations in language. In the present research, we investigate the priming of semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese using the locative alternation: A menina lustrou a mesa com o verniz “The girl rubbed the table with the polish” vs. A menina lustrou o verniz na mesa “The girl rubbed the polish on the table.” On the surface, both locative variants have the same syntactic structure: NP-V-NP-PP. However, location-theme locatives (“rub table with polish” describe a caused-change-of-state event, while theme-location locatives (“rub polish on table”) describe a caused-change-of-location event. We find robust priming on the basis of these semantic differences. This work extends our knowledge by demonstrating that semantic structural priming is not isolated to languages like English (e.g., satellite-framed with strict word order and limited inflection) but is present in a language with very different typological characteristics (e.g., verb-framed and richly inflected with subject dropping).

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Notes

  1. These differences are also frequently attributed to different orderings of thematic role representations (i.e., location before theme vs. theme before location). For present purposes, the two accounts make the same predictions. But we have argued elsewhere that event structures better capture the full range of priming facts than thematic role mappings (Ziegler et al. 2018b).

  2. While Salamoura and Williams (2007, Exp. 3) also studied “locatives,” these were standard transitive sentences with a locative prepositional phrase (e.g., The president kept the gold medal in the drawer; see also Bock and Loebell 1990; Potter and Lombardi 1998; Ziegler and Snedeker 2018) and not the alternating change-of-location verbs we are interested in here (following, e.g., Levin 1993; Pinker 1989).

  3. Note that this is consistent with the skewed frequency distribution of locative sentences reported for romance languages in the literature (e.g., Lewandowski 2014; Mateu 2017): participants produced theme-location locatives 35% of the time when unprimed (inverse of 65%) and only 49% when primed (inverse of 51%).

  4. Passives and actives famously can differ in meaning (e.g., Two languages are known by every linguist vs. Every linguist knows two languages). However, such differences appear to stem from differences in scopal preference based on the differences in information structure (e.g., Goldberg 2006, ch. 8). Specifically, the more topical argument tends to have wider scope.

  5. Still other languages, like Chinese, have serial verb constructions that encode both manner and path in separate verbs (see, e.g., Levin and Rappaport Hovav 2019).

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Acknowledgements

During the collection and writing up of this research, RM was supported by a Fulbright grant on exchange at Harvard University. Special thanks to Chrissie Carvalho for assistance with coding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Jayden Ziegler, Rodrigo Morato & Jesse Snedeker

  2. Postgraduate Program in Letters, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Rodrigo Morato

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  1. Jayden Ziegler
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Correspondence to Jayden Ziegler.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Prime sentences

Verb

Location-theme

Theme-location

acertar

“hit”

A mulher acertou a rede com a raquete

“The woman hit the net with the racquet”

A mulher acertou a raquete na rede

“The woman hit the racquet on the net”

besuntar

“smear”

O homem besuntou o pão com a manteiga de amendoim

“The man smeared the bread with the peanut butter”

O homem besuntou a manteiga de amendoim no pão

“The man smeared the peanut butter on the bread”

borrifar

“spray”

O menino borrifou a planta com a água

“The boy sprayed the plant with the water”

O menino borrifou a água na planta

“The boy sprayed the water on the plant”

embrulhar

“wrap”

O homem embrulhou o presente com o papel de seda

“The man wrapped the present with the tissue paper”

O homem embrulhou o papel de seda no presente

“The man wrapped the tissue paper on the present”

enrolar

“roll”

A mulher enrolou a pizza com o papel filme

“The woman rolled the pizza with the plastic wrap”

A mulher enrolou o papel filme na pizza

“The woman rolled the plastic wrap on the pizza”

esfregar

“rub”

O menino esfregou o cabelo dele com o xampu

“The boy rubbed his hair with the shampoo”

O menino esfregou o xampu no cabelo dele

“The boy rubbed the shampoo on his hair”

lustrar

“polish”

A menina lustrou a mesa com o verniz

“The girl polished the table with the polish”

A menina lustrou o verniz na mesa

“The girl polished the polish on the table”

rabiscar

“scribble”

A menina rabiscou o caderno com a canetinha

“The girl scribbled the notebook with the marker”

A menina rabiscou a canetinha no caderno

“The girl scribbled the marker on the notebook”

Appendix B: Target animations

Verb

Description

acertar

“hit”

O menino acertando a trave com a bola/a bola na trave

“The boy hitting the goal post with the ball/the ball on the goal post”

besuntar

“smear”

A mulher besuntando o bolo com a cobertura/a cobertura no bolo

“The woman smearing the cake with the frosting/the frosting on the cake”

borrifar

“spray”

A menina borrifando o pescoço com o perfume/o perfume no pescoço

“The girl spraying the neck with the perfume/the perfume on the neck”

embrulhar

“wrap”

O homem embrulhando a caneca com o jornal/o jornal na caneca

“The man wrapping the mug with the newspaper/the newspaper on the mug”

enrolar

“roll”

A mulher enrolando o braço da criança com a faixa/a faixa no braço da criança

“The woman rolling the arm with the bandage/the bandage on the arm”

esfregar

“rub”

O homem esfregando as mãos com o sabão/o sabão nas mãos

“The man rubbing the hands with the soap/the soap on the hands”

lustrar

“polish”

O menino lustrando o sapato com a cêra/a cêra no sapato

“The boy polishing the shoe with the wax/the wax on the shoe”

rabiscar

“scribble”

A menina rabiscando o passeio com o giz/o giz no passeio

“The girl scribbling the sidewalk with the chalk/the chalk on the sidewalk”

Appendix C: Supplementary material

The data associated with this article can be found at https://www.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/MK2ES.

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Ziegler, J., Morato, R. & Snedeker, J. Priming semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese. J Cult Cogn Sci 3 (Suppl 1), 25–37 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-019-00022-8

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