Abstract
Recent proposals in the semantics literature hold that the negative comparative less and negative adjectives like short in English are morphosyntactically complex, unlike their positive counterparts more and tall. For instance, the negative adjective short might decompose into little tall (Rullmann, Dissertation, 1995; Heim, Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory, vol. 16, 2006, Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, vol. 12, 2008; Büring, Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory, vol. 17, 2007). Positing a silent little as part of adjectives like short correctly predicts that they are semantically opposite to tall; we seek evidence for this decomposition in language understanding in English and Polish. Our visual verification tasks compare processing of positive and negative comparatives with taller and shorter against that of less symbolically-rich mathematical statements, \(A > B\), \(B < A\). We find that both language and math statements generally lead to monotonic increases in processing load along with the number of negative symbols (as predicted for language by e.g. Clark and Chase, Cognitive Psychology, 3:472–517, 1972). Our study is the first to examine the processing of the gradable predicates tall and short cross-linguistically, as well as in contrast to extensionally-equivalent, and putatively non-linguistic stimuli (cf. Deschamps et al, Cognition, 143:115–128, 2015 with quantificational determiners).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Note that Kennedy’s analysis differs from Rullmann’s in that Rullmann had the negative antonym ‘flip’ what was otherwise a positively-oriented scale (i.e. reverse the ordering relations). In contrast, Kennedy (and subsequent authors presupposing his ontology) proposes that negative antonyms introduce sets of degrees that extend from a point d to infinity, the complement of the set introduced by the positive antonym (see especially Kennedy 2001, p. 55, examples (46) and (48), for discussion).
- 2.
Possibly more importantly, Beck (2013) has found some slipperiness in the judgments of speakers for the relevant scope data. Thus, so far it seems that the evaluation of decompositional analyses from the perspective of semantic theory should not yet hang on the data in (7).
- 3.
- 4.
A further difference is that Deschamps et al. (2015) presented their linguistic statements auditorily.
- 5.
No filler task items were used in this experiment or in the second experiment reported below.
- 6.
Indeed, this is the pattern found by Clark and Chase (1972), when participants evaluated the sentences A is above B and A is below B in a Sentence-Picture verification task. However, Trabasso et al. (1971) reported an interaction between polarity and congruence, in which RTs were greater for negatives in incongruent situations, yet greater for positives in congruent situations. These results, however, were found in a Picture-Sentence verification task where the contrast in negativity was sentential negation, e.g.: The patch is/isn’t orange.
- 7.
As noted above, congruence effects were not discussed by Deschamps et al. (2015).
- 8.
It is possible that our participants understood the math statements in terms of natural language translations like A is greater/less than B, which lead to the language-like effects. The quasi-algebraic expressions tested in Deschamps et al. (2015) consisted of blue and yellow squares on both sides of the > and < operators. Such representations might be less likely to be translated into natural language than \(A>B\) and \(A<B\), potentially accounting for the differences between our study and theirs.
- 9.
An anonymous reviewer notes that we so far have not directly compared these two sub-experiments, and so haven’t shown that they are statistically different from one another. Conducting a post-hoc LMEM comparison over the combined data from the English and Math sub-experiments, we found no main effect for the contrast-coded factor language (English vs. Math), nor any interactions with that factor. Subsequently, in the text, we focus on the qualitative difference that can be seen in Fig. 3, and which was borne out in the independent 2\(\,\times \,\)2 analyses.
- 10.
- 11.
These data were not collected for Experiment 2 due to a programming error.
References
Allopenna, P. D., Magnuson, J. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (1998). Tracking the time course of spoken word recognition using eye movements: Evidence for continuous mapping models. Journal of Memory and Language, 38(4), 419–439.
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C., & Tily, H. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68(3), 255–278.
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B. M., & Walker, S. (2014). lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. R package version 1.1-7.
Beck, S. (2013). Lucinda driving too fast again-the scalar properties of ambiguous than-clauses. Journal of Semantics, 30(1), 1–63.
Bobaljik, J. D. (2012). Universals in comparative morphology: Suppletion, superlatives, and the structure of words. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
Bresnan, J. (1973). Syntax of the comparative clause construction in English. Linguistic Inquiry, 4(3), 275–343.
Büring, D. (2007). Cross-polar nomalies. In T. Friedman & M. Gibson (Eds.), Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (Vol. 17, pp. 37–52).
Carpenter, P. A. (1974). On the comprehension, storage and retrieval of comparative sentences. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(4), 401–411.
Carpenter, R. H. S. (1977). Movements of the eyes. London, UK: Pion Ltd.
Clark, H. H. (1969a). The influence of language in solving three term series problems. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 82(2), 205–215.
Clark, H. H. (1969b). Linguistic processes in deductive reasoning. Psychological Review, 76(4), 387–404.
Clark, H. H. (1970). How we understand negation. Paper presented at COBRE workshop on cognitive organization and psychological processes, Huntington Beach, CA.
Clark, H. H., Carpenter, P. A., & Just, M. A. (1973). On the meeting of semantics and perception. In W. Chase (Ed.), Visual information processing (pp. 311–381). New York, NY: Academic Press.
Clark, H. H., & Chase, W. G. (1972). On the process of comparing sentences against pictures. Cognitive Psychology, 3(3), 472–517.
Cresswell, M. J. (1976). The semantics of degree. In B. H. Partee (Ed.), Montague Grammar (pp. 261–292). New York: Academic Press.
Deschamps, I., Agmon, G., Lewenstein, Y., & Grodzinsky, Y. (2015). The processing of polar quantifiers, and numerosity perception. Cognition, 143, 115–128.
Dunbar, E., & Wellwood, A. (2016). Addressing the ‘two interface’ problem: The case of comparatives and superlatives. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 1(1), 5.
Gelman, A., & Hill, J. (2007). Data analysis using regression and multilevel/hierarchical models. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hackl, M. (2009). On the grammar and processing of proportional quantifers: Most versus more than half. Natural Language Semantics, 17(1), 63–98.
Heim, I. (1985). Notes on comparatives and related matters. Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas, Austin.
Heim, I. (2001). Degree operators and scope. In C. Fery & W. Sternefeld (Eds.), Audiatur Vox Sapientiae. A Festschrift for Arnim von Stechow (pp. 214–239). Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Heim, I. (2006). Little. In M. Gibson & J. Howell (Eds.), Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (Vol. 16, pp. 35–58), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
Heim, I. (2008). Decomposing antonyms? In A. Grønn (Ed.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung (Vol. 12, pp. 212–225). Oslo: ILOS.
Heim, I., & Kratzer, A. (1998). Semantics in Generative Grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Horn, L. (1972). On the semantic properties of the logical operators in English. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Huttenlocher, J. (1969). Imaginal processes in reasoning. Paper presented at the XIX International Congress of Psychology, London, UK.
Just, M. A. (1974). Comprehending quantified sentences: The relation between sentence-picture and semantic memory verification. Cognitive Psychology, 6(2), 216–236.
Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1971). Comprehension of negation with quantification. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 10(3), 244–253.
Kennedy, C. (1999). Projecting the adjective: The syntax and semantics of gradability and comparison. New York: Garland.
Kennedy, C. (2001). Polar opposition and the ontology of ‘degrees’. Linguistics and Philosophy, 24(1), 33–70.
Klima, E. S. (1964). Negation in English. In J. A. Fodor & J. J. Katz (Eds.), The structure of language: Readings in the philosophy of language (pp. 246–323). Prentice Hall.
Lakoff, G. (1970). Linguistics and natural logic. Synthese, 22(1–2), 151–271.
de Leeuw, J. R. (2015). jspsych: A javascript library for creating behavioral experiments in a web browser. Behavior Research Methods, 47(1), 1–12.
Lidz, J., Halberda, J., Pietroski, P., & Hunter, T. (2011). Interface transparency and the psychosemantics of most. Natural Language Semantics, 6(3), 227–256.
May, R. (1977). The grammar of quantification. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Pancheva, R. (2006). Phrasal and clausal comparatives in Slavic. In Formal approaches to Slavic linguistics (Vol. 14, pp. 236–257).
Pietroski, P., Lidz, J., Hunter, T., & Halberda, J. (2009). The meaning of most: Semantics, numerosity, and psychology. Mind & Language, 24(5), 554–585.
Roelandt, K. (2016). Most or the art of compositionality: Dutch ‘de/het meeste’ at the syntax-semantics interface. Dissertation, KU Leuven.
Rullmann, H. (1995). Maximality in the semantics of wh-constructions. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Seuren, P. A. M. (1973). The comparative. In F. Kiefer & N. Ruwet (Eds.), Generative Grammar in Europe (pp. 528–564). Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Solt, S. (2015). Q-adjectives and the semantics of quantity. Journal of Semantics, 32(2), 221–273.
Sternberg, S. (1969). The discovery of processing stages: Extensions of Donders’ method. Acta Psychologica, 30, 276–315.
Szabolcsi, A. (2012). Compositionality without word boundaries: (the) more and (the) most. In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (Vol. 22, pp. 1–25). Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.
Trabasso, T., Rollins, H., & Shaughnessy, E. (1971). Storage and verification stages in processing concepts. Cognitive Psychology, 2(3), 239–289.
Wellwood, A. (2012). Back to basics: More is always much-er. In E. Chemla, V. Homer, & G. Winterstein (Eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung (Vol. 17). Paris: ENS.
Wellwood, A. (2015). On the semantics of comparison across categories. Linguistics and Philosophy, 38(1), 67–101.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Rebecca Way for creating the diagrams illustrating the Kennedy semantics from Sect. 2, and assisting with programming Experiment 1. We also extend our gratitude to Joanna Blaszczak, Andreas Brocher, Johannes Gerwien, Naomi Kamoen, and Maria Mos for their involvement with coding Experiment 2. Finally, we extend a special acknowledgment to Yaman Özakın for his work on creating the picture stimuli used in both experiments. The work on Experiment 2 was supported by the Polish National Science Center (NCN) grant OPUS 5 HS2 (DEC-2013/09/B/HS2/02763).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tucker, D., Tomaszewicz, B., Wellwood, A. (2018). Decomposition and Processing of Negative Adjectival Comparatives. In: Castroviejo, E., McNally, L., Weidman Sassoon, G. (eds) The Semantics of Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure. Language, Cognition, and Mind, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77791-7_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77791-7_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77790-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77791-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)